The Runaway Marauder
by neelie415
Summary: Run away Catherine Campbell breaks into James Potter's house to steal food but is caught. What happens next? She couldn't possibly go back to her family's house. They're a bunch of pure-blood minded dark wizards. When the Potters decide to take her in, Kat is thrown into a whirlwind of events involving secrets, rivalries, and romance.
1. Discovery

_Click. _The door slid open. Behind it, the gleaming wood floor of the kitchen appeared. The lights were extinguished and the only sound was the drumming of rain on the windows. Catherine Campbell stepped quietly over the threshold and closed the door quietly. The wizarding family (the Potters if the sign on the walkway could be trusted) who owned the home appeared to be out and there was no sign of a house elf. Catherine sighed and leaned heavily against the door.

Two weeks had passed since she had run away from her parent's house. They were the most vile, inhumane people she had ever known. They judged everyone based on blood-status and lineage. Women and girls meant next to nothing to them, and all they wanted were sons. Three years after Catherine was born, they got their wish; her brother, Aiden, was born. From that day, Catherine was kept shut up in the basement of their grand estate and forbidden contact with anyone but the house elf, Iggy. While treats and gifts were piled onto the new baby boy, who was to inherit everything, Catherine was kept to the cellar. When her letter from Hogwarts arrived, her parents ripped it to pieces and ignored it. After several more showed up, they wrote to the headmaster, telling him they preferred to homeschool Catherine. When Aiden's letter arrived however, all the school supplies were bought and he was sent off to the most prestigious school in the country. Catherine, however, was still kept home. Iggy negotiated various "treats" for Catherine during this time, which included actually allowing her a wand.

Catherine clutched the wand that had chosen her (twelve inches, dragon heartstring, holly) in her hand and sighed again. On the last "little treat" Iggy had negotiated for her, (a walk around the moor) she'd run for it. Now, a fifteen year old runaway, Catherine had been sleeping in barns and breaking into houses for food. Desperate for a bath, Catherine had broken into the house where she stood now.

Over the four years that she had owned her wand, Catherine had taught herself how to do most of the magic she knew. She convinced Iggy to steal Aiden's old school books for her, and she spent day after day studying out of them. She learned early on, (from an overheard conversation between her parents) that the ministry couldn't really keep track of _who_ was doing magic. Since she lived in a house with two full grown wizards, the magic she performed in the cellar was assumed to be her parents'. Given the circumstances, Catherine considered herself pretty well off with her magic. She could very well not know anything.

Taking a deep breath, she tip-toed through the kitchen in search of a bathroom with a shower or bathtub. She came to a staircase, and after a moment's hesitation she climbed it. Four doors stood at the top of the first landing, one of them ajar. It was a bathroom with a shower! Grinning at her luck, Catherine slipped inside and closed the door behind her. She turned the shower on, quickly stripped down and stepped inside. After fifteen minutes (she hadn't meant to take such a long shower, marveling at the cucumber-melon scented soap) she stepped out again and patted herself dry with a towel from the rack next to the shower. The mirror over the sink wasn't quite fogged up so she could still see her reflection. A skinny girl with waist length dark brown hair stared back at her with wide green eyes. She sighed and looked down at her small pile of clothes. She'd been wearing the same pair of dirty blue jeans and ratty green T-shirt for two weeks. Screwing up her nose at the smell, she slipped back into them. At the next house she came to, she'd wash them.

After listening with her ear pressed against the door for any sound within the house, she opened the door to sneak back down the stairs to leave. The only problem was that there was some one already standing on the landing.

"Um, I definitely don't know you. What the bloody hell are you doing in my house?" The boy on the landing said.

Catherine could do nothing but stand frozen with eyes wide, smelling of a mixture of cucumber-melon soap and dirty laundry. _She'd been caught_. She hadn't anticipated the Potter's returning while she was still in the house. The boy didn't really seem angry. On the contrary, he seemed surprised. His eyebrows had shot up when he saw Catherine and disappeared into his incredibly messy black hair. Glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose and from behind, brown eyes were staring curiously at her. He took a step forward and Catherine automatically took a step back.

"It's alright. I'm not mad. How did you get in here?" He asked, taking another step forward.

"Came in through the kitchen." Catherine mumbled with a glance sideways. Maybe one of the other rooms had a window she could jump through. She was only on the first story-it wouldn't be too far of a drop.

"Did you really? You'll have to show me a thing or two about picking locks. It might come handy at Hogwarts!" He grinned at her and Catherine's stomach gave an awful lurch. This boy went to Hogwarts! He might know Aiden, and if he did, he would be sure to tell her parents. Catherine wasn't sure what her parents would do to her if they ever found her, but she wasn't keen to find out. She pulled her wand out of her back pocket and pointed it at the boy.

"Don't make me jinx you! All I want to do is leave!" She said, in what she hoped was a menacing voice.

"Pfft. Don't be ridiculous. Do you know who you're talking to?" The boy laughed and drew his wand as well. Catherine stared fearfully at his wand tip. She'd never been in a duel with someone and wasn't sure if she would survive. Luckily, at that point, the boy turned his head over his shoulder and bellowed, "DAD! HEY, DAD!" She tried to take advantage of him looking away and make a run for it, but as if he anticipated this, he stuck out his foot and Catherine tripped.

"What is it?" A man's voice called from below. Catherine sat bolt upright. Adults made her nervous, and who could blame her really, with who she had for parents?

"There's a girl up here!" The boy called. He looked down at Catherine and saw that she was too stunned to move. He pocketed his wand and sat on the floor next to her. "What's your name?" He asked innocently as his father bounded up the stairs.

"A girl? Are you playing some sort of joke—" The man stopped when he saw Catherine. He looked remarkably like his son, just with more gray in his hair (which wasn't as messy). Catherine looked between the father and son and stood up.

"I'm sorry, sir. I was just looking for somewhere to take a shower and get cleaned up before I moved on to somewhere else." She bowed slightly to the boy's father, who looked surprised.

"Where are you headed?"

"Erm…I don't really know, sir."

"On the run, are you?" Mr. Potter asked, earning a startled look from Catherine. He smiled sadly. "Why don't you come downstairs and you can meet my wife. You've already met my son, James." The boy stood up and grinned at Catherine.

"That was my bathroom you were using! You'd better not've used all my soap!" He said teasingly, leading the way downstairs with Catherine following slowly, entirely speechless. She had expected the boy's father to be furious that some homeless girl had broken into his home. Instead, he was polite and even seemed a bit sympathetic. Beginning to hope for a positive outcome, Catherine looked around at the room they had just entered.

It was a spacious parlor with a baby grand piano sitting in a corner and numerous armchairs. A kindly woman with blonde hair was curled up in one of these armchairs across from the piano, reading a novel. She looked up in surprise when she saw Catherine enter the room with her husband and son.

"Dear, what-?" She said, looking at Catherine.

"This young lady—" Mr. Potter began.

"Catherine." Interjected Catherine quietly. Mr. Potter glanced at her, and then continued.

"This young lady, Catherine, broke into our house to use James' shower. It appears as though she's run away from an awful place and has been wandering the country side."

"Oh, dear, come here and let me have a look at you!" Mrs. Potter called, gesturing Catherine to come stand by her armchair. Catherine nervously answered her summons and Mrs. Potter took both her hands in hers. "You do look severely underfed. How long have you been running around?"

"For about two weeks." Catherine answered quietly. She couldn't seem to look Mrs. Potter in the eye. Instead she contented herself with staring at the top of her head.

"Would you like to stay here for a little while?" Mrs. Potter asked, letting go of Catherine's hands.

"What? Stay here?" Catherine asked, bewildered. "But I broke in! You should be furious with me and turn me over to the ministry or something!" She looked at all three of the Potters' faces. She couldn't believe it.

"We might find ourselves in a similar position here in a few more months," said Mr. Potter while looking at James. James just shrugged and looked at Catherine.

"So how about it, Catherine? Would you like to stay with us?" Mrs. Potter asked again. "We won't ask you about your home if you are uncomfortable talking about it."

Catherine looked at the people standing around her. They were the first friendly people she'd ever met. "I guess one night wouldn't be too bad." She said quietly.

"Excellent." Said James, grinning broadly. "Wait until I tell my friends."

Catherine stared around at the room she would be staying in. It was spacious, much like every other room in the house, and was dominated by a large, canopy queen sized bed. James had informed her a few minutes ago that it was one of the guest bedrooms and he'd called it the "purple room". Catherine could see why. The walls were painted a lavender color and the curtains that hung over the windows were a deep, royal purple. The bed spread was purple as well. A chest of drawers stood next to the largest window in the room and a bureau with a mirror stood opposite of it. She'd poked her head into both of the doors that branched off her room and discovered a closet and bathroom. She sank down at the end of the bed and stared at the purple wall. Two weeks ago she was still stuck in the basement of her parent's mansion, and now here she was, staying in a house full of complete strangers who were kind enough to let her stay they night.

"This is seriously weird." She thought out loud.

"You're telling me!" Catherine jumped as James burst in through the door. "We just got back from the match and all I wanted to do was take a shower and there was some girl standing in my bathroom!" He grinned and plopped down on the bed next to her.

"Match?"

James' jaw dropped. "Don't tell me you don't know about Qudditch! Where have you been living all your life? Under a rock?"

"You're closer than you would think." Catherine said with a twisted smile. James then commenced explaining the rules of Quidditch and she hung onto his every word. It sounded fascinating. When she told James she'd never ridden a broom, he nearly exploded.

"Well we have to go! Right now, c'mon!" He jumped up and grabbed her hand, trying to pull her off the bed.

"James, it's still raining outside and it's dark."

"Oh." James sat back down beside her. "Y'know Mum and Dad are probably going to make you stay for a while. At least until you stop looking starved. Want some food?"

Catherine's stomach gave a large gurgle and answered James' question. After a quick trip to the kitchen for a snack of cheese and crackers and James chattering away about his friends and Catherine listening, she headed back up to her room. Mrs. Potter was sitting on the bed holding a pile of what looked like her old clothes. She smiled when she saw Catherine walk in.

"I thought you might need some clothes." She said, leaving the clothes in a pile on the bed and standing up to leave.

"Wait, don't go." Catherine stared at her feet shyly. "Thank you. Thanks for letting me stay." Mrs. Potter just smiled and headed for the door. Before she left, however she told Catherine to lock her door.

"James likes to pull pranks sometimes on people while they're sleeping."

_Fantastic._ Catherine rummaged through the stack of clothes and found that they were mostly dresses and skirts, with one pair of pants. She supposed that once she washed her jeans she'd be able to use them again.

A few minutes later, Catherine was under the covers of the bed in a set of borrowed pajamas, staring at the canvas over the bed. This morning she had woken up in a barn, and now she was staying in this huge purple room wearing some woman's clothes. It had been a very strange day indeed. And she wasn't at all sure if she liked the mischievous glint in James' eye every time he mentioned his friends and Hogwarts. _But,_ she told herself just before she fell asleep, _she could always just leave tomorrow._


	2. Making Friends

Catherine woke up the next day to the sound of something heavy slamming into her door. She sat up quickly and started panicking when she didn't recognize where she was. Then, memories of the night before came rushing back and she remembered that she was now a guest in the home of the Potter's.

"Catherine! Open your door!" James' voice was slightly muffled and it sounded like he had his face pressed against the door. "There's someone here I want you to meet!"

"I don't believe you, James. No way some random girl breaks into your house and your parents decide to keep her!" The second voice sounded like it belonged to another boy the same age as James.

Unsure what to do (she wasn't sure if she was supposed to open her door wearing pink pinstriped pajamas), Catherine decided to wait and see what James and his friend were going to do.

"C'mon, Catherine! You've gotta open the door! Man, Catherine is a mouthful…mind if we call you Kat or something?"

"Do what you want, James." Catherine said through the door. She was standing in front of it with her arms crossed. What exactly were you supposed to do when two boys were literally trying to break down your door?

There was a moment of silence and then what sounded like someone being punched in the shoulder. "See! I told you this girl broke into my house! Now open up, Kat! You got an owl!"

Catherine took a deep breath to brace herself and opened the door. James and the other boys spilled onto the floor in front of her. She raised an eyebrow as they stood up. "Good morning." She said in what she hoped was a nonchalant sort of way.

"Damn, you're skinny." Said the second boy. Catherin glared at him.

"Of course she's skinny! She's been on the run! She ran away from her parent's." James said, rolling his eyes.

The second boy was giving Catherine an appraising look, as though she were a piece of meat. He had a handsome face with gray eyes and black hair. He wasn't quite as tall as James, though considerably taller than Catherine. He seemed satisfied after he had thoroughly surveyed Catherine though, and he sat on the edge of her bed.

"So you ran away from home, huh?", he said. He didn't look too happy. "Wish I could."

"I've told you a million times, mate. My folks won't mind if you come stay here with us. Look, they took in some random girl who broke into our house. Of course they'll let you stay! We've known you for ages." James sat on the bed next to the boy and looked at Catherine. "This is Sirius Black, by the way."

Catherine took a step back until her back was against the wall. She should've known it was too good to be true. The Potter's were only faking at being nice. They were really Dark wizards just like her parents if they allowed their son to be friends with a Black. Iggy had told her stories about the Blacks. Sirius noticed her reaction and his eyes narrowed.

"Not a fan of my family, I see. Well, join the party." He said bitterly. "Wish I could just up and leave like you did."

"Sirius is the polar opposite of his family. They're all in Slytherin, but he's in Gryffendor." As if this settled the matter, James held out the envelope addressed to Catherine. "Here's your mail. I got mine as well."

Catherine took the heavy envelope addressed to her (Catherine Campbell, Purple Room…) emblazoned with a coat of arms bearing a lion, raven, snake and badger. She opened the envelope with shaking fingers. "I don't believe it. I've been accepted into Hogwarts!" The two boys looked at each other.

"Why wouldn't you be going back this year?" James asked.

"I've never been. How do they know I'm here now?" Catherine asked, eyeing the address on the envelope.

"I dunno. Professor Dumbledore usually keeps on top of things I guess. But, what a minute. Did you say that you've never been to Hogwarts before?" Sirius asked, staring at Catherine as if he'd never seen someone quite like her. "No wonder I didn't recognize you. So what have you been doing all of these years?"

Catherine turned red and stuffed the letter back into the envelope. "Never mind. I'm never going to be able to afford all of this stuff anyway. I don't have any money."

"Don't worry, they have a plan at Hogwarts for kids who can't afford it." James waved his hand as if he was trying to usher the topic away. "So you'll have to be sorted with all the first years."

"Sorted?"

"They have to figure out what house to put you in. To see where you'll stay all year."

"Oh."

"It'll be fine. But don't worry about it now. Let's go talk to Mum and Dad and convince them to let you stay with us." James got off from the bed.

"Stay with you? I thought I was getting kicked out after today?" Catherine said in astonishment. "They won't want me to stay. I'm just a hassle."

"Don't be ridiculous, Kat. You need a place to stay before you leave for Hogwarts." James ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier. "Unless, of course, you have somewhere else to go?"

"No, of course I don't have anywhere else to go. I'm definitely not going back to my parents. But, if I go to Hogwarts I might run into Ai—" Catherine stopped short before she finished what she was saying. She didn't want James and Sirius to know about her family just yet.

"We'll stick by you at school to make sure nothing happens to ya, right Sirius?" Sirius nodded. "Now let's go see Mum and Dad."

After some negotiation, it was agreed that Catherine could stay at the Potter's until September 1st when they would leave on the Hogwarts Express. The next few weeks passed with Catherine becoming more comfortable around the Potters. She grew a little taller now that she was actually eating and she filled out nicely, she didn't look like she'd been half starved anymore. James and Sirius (who was over at the house so often it was like he lived there too) stopped calling her a twig and by September 1st, Catherine had become a regular member of the family.


	3. The Sorting Ceremony

**Hello everybody! I suppose I should say that I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters in this story below here except for the ones I make up myself!**

**If you really like it, please review! I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and any ideas you have!**

* * *

The morning of September 1st dawned bright and clear with James and Catherine waiting in the parlor with their trunks packed. Mrs. Potter had ventured to Diagon Alley to pick up James and Catherine's new school supplies.

"You ready for this, Kat?" James asked from his perch on top of his trunk. He kept running his hand through his hair. Catherine had already figured out that this was a favorite habit of his.

"I guess, yeah. It can't be any worse than my parents' house."

Mr. Potter appeared in the parlor and ushered them out the door. The journey to King's Cross didn't take very long and after James explained how to get through the barrier to Platform nine and three-quarters, Catherine found herself looking up at a massive scarlet steam engine. Hogwarts students were already running around the platform greeting their friends and saying good-bye to their families. Catherine gazed around in wonder, and then her eyes fell upon the trio she had been most dreading to see. Her parents were on the platform with Aiden. She squealed and grabbed James' arm, pulling him behind one of the station columns.

"Kat, what-?"

"It's my parents. They're here for my brother." Catherine peeked out from behind the column to see her mother giving Aiden a hug. "I was hoping we'd miss them."

James gave an ugly snort. "That's your brother?" Catherine nodded. "Slimy little git. I know him, he's a Slytherin third year this year, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, your parents are leaving now and your brother is getting on the train. Blimey, they don't look happy do they?" Catherine's parents passed close in front of the column and they were looking furious.

"I didn't think they'd be happy about me leaving." She edged out from behind the column to say good-bye to the Potters. "Thank you so much for letting me stay with you! I'll make it up to you, I swear!"

Mrs. Potter chuckled. "Maybe you can cure James and Sirius of their bad habit of getting into trouble." She gave James a hug and a kiss on top of his head.

"Mom, it's not a bad if even you get a kick out of it!" He squirmed to get out of her hug. To Catherine's great surprise she received a kiss too. It was the first she could ever remember getting.

"We'll see you for the Christmas holidays."

"You, mean I can come back?" Catherine was astounded. She had never dared to hope that the Potters might actually like her enough that she could live with them for good. True, she had fun living with them, but she didn't think that they would like her so much.

"Of course, dear." Mrs. Potter smiled and took her husband's arm and they walked back through the barrier.

Catherine stared blankly after them for a second before James nudged her. "C'mon. Let's find a compartment." Students waved and hollered at James as he led Catherine through the train to a compartment near the end that was empty. Sirius showed up after they'd stowed their things, along with two other boys. One was rather pudgy with small, watery eyes, and he face lit up when he saw James. The other was a tired, disheveled looking boy with dark circles under his eyes and extremely shabby clothes. He smiled when he saw Catherine and he looked a bit healthier. Catherine liked him almost immediately.

"This is Peter," said Sirius, gesturing to the fat boy before plopping down next to James.

"And I'm Remus Lupin." The boy with circles under his eyes extended his hand to shake Catherine's. He had light brown hair and a scar across his cheek. To Catherine, he looked like he could use a good meal and a lot of rest. "James told us about you." He sat on the seat across from James and Sirius and Catherine sat next to him.

The journey to Hogwarts passed quickly once Catherine grew comfortable with the new faces. James took out a set of Gobstones and they played until the food trolley arrived. Then, Sirius bought a bunch of cauldron cakes, Berty Bot's Every Flavor Beans, and chocolate frogs, along with an assortment of other sweets that the five friends stuffed themselves with.

The longer the train ride lasted, the more nervous and excited Catherine got. She was worried about the Sorting and happy that she had friends. She knew for sure that she didn't want to be in Slytherin: Aiden was there and her new friends were all in Gryffendor. She didn't think that she would be in Ravenclaw because she didn't know too much about magic (all she knew she'd learned from the books the house elf Iggy had brought her). Hufflepuff wouldn't be too bad, but she wanted badly to be in Gryffendor with the rest of her friends. As she was pondering which house she would be sorted into, a voice echoed through the train informing them that they would be arriving soon.

Catherine and the boys slipped on their robes and waited for the train to reach the station.

"Where am I supposed to go?" Catherine was beginning to feel more nervous than excited. Her brother would surly recognize her and she had no idea how he would react.

"I think you'll have to cross the lake with the other first years to get sorted." Remus said as the train ground to a halt.

"We'll see you soon!" After hopping off the train, the boys waved good-bye to Catherine and climbed into what looked like horseless carriages.

"Cath'rin Campbell? 'S there a Cath'rin Campbell 'ere?" Catherine's head turned when she heard a voice booming her name. She stared up at the biggest man she'd ever seen. He simply looked too big to be allowed.

"I'm Catherine."

"'ello! M'name is Rubeus Hagrid. But you c'n jus' call me Hagrid. I'm th'gamekeeper up at Hogwarts. Just follow me." Hagrid then let out a booming call of "Firs' years! This way!" And soon had a flock of tiny, petrified eleven-year-olds who stared up at Hagrid.

After the rest of the school all climbed into the carriages, Hagrid set off with the first years and Catherine in tow towards the great lake that lay at the base of Hogwarts. The huge castle was reflected on the water and the windows in the many turrets blazed in the night. Catherine climbed into a boat followed by three other students (Hagrid had a boat to himself). As one, the fleet of boats took off across the lake.

In what seemed like no time, a stern looking witch with her hair pulled up in a tight bun greeted the new students and welcomed them to Hogwarts and introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffendor House. She quickly explained about the sorting ceremony and then instructed them to get into a line. Catherine got behind a tiny boy with sandy brown hair and took a deep breath, her hands shaking slightly. Professor McGonagall then led the line of first years (and Catherine) through a door into the Great Hall.

Hundreds of students were already seated at four huge tables and they all turned to stare at the line of new students. Catherine, like many of the first years, stared up at the ceiling which was bewitched to look like the sky outside. Hundreds of stars winked back at her. Bringing her eyes back to the here and now, Catherine saw a dusty old hat sitting on a three legged stool and knew, from what James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus had told her, that she had to try it on and it would tell her what house she belonged in. She didn't really understand how a hat was supposed to know where she should be sorted, but she trusted her new friends.

McGonagall arranged them in a line in front of the head table where all the teachers sat so that the new students were facing out at their peers. Catherine spotted James waving heartily at her from the table far to the left and she grinned. Her eyes scanned the hall, but she couldn't see her brother, Aiden anywhere. Before she looked too hard though, a wide tear at the bottom of the dusty hat opened and the hat began to sing. It told of the history of Hogwarts and the four houses and the attributes of the students selected for each. The whole hall burst into applause when it finished, and Catherine followed suit. Then, McGonagall stepped forward, carrying a long, rolled up parchment in her hand.

"I will call out your name, and then you will step forward and place the Sorting Hat on your head." She said to the first years. "Anderson, Steven."

The sandy haired boy next to Catherine stepped forward, trembling. He stumbled over to the stool and put the hat on his head. A few seconds later, the rip opened again and the hat shouted out "Ravenclaw!" The table next to the Gryffendor table burst into applause as Steven sat down at the end of it. A few minutes later, Catherine heard McGonagall call her name.

She stepped forward nervously and put the hat on her head. "Ah, Campbell," a tiny voice in her head whispered. "I wondered why I haven't seen you before today, but now I know. It's all here in your head, how you escaped from your parents. Definitely not like them, are we? So Slytherin is out." Catherine breathed a sigh of relief. "Ravenclaw isn't completely out, since you've managed to teach yourself so much from borrowed books. But it takes courage to run away, so better put you in Gryffendor!" The hat shouted the last word to the whole hall and Catherine smiled. She handed the hat back to Professor McGonagall and ran over to the Gryffendor table to sit with her new friends. They were clapping and cheering with the rest of the table.

"Congratulations!" James said, thumping her on the back. "Now you get to deal with us all the time!" Catherine grinned at the four boys sitting around her, feeling completely happy for what felt like the first time in her life. She couldn't stop smiling as the rest of the new students were sorted. Once the ceremony was over, the headmaster stood up to say a few words. After Professor Dumbledore told the whole school to stay away from the Forbidden Forest and the Whomping Willow, and that fanged Frisbees were banned in the corridors. After that, the most food Catherine had ever seen in one place appeared on the golden plates, and the feast began.

An hour or so later, after stuffing themselves completely, the boys led Catherine to the portrait of the Fat Lady. "The common room is behind her. You just have to give her the password." Remus said, as they waited for a Prefect to show up. Catherine nodded to show she understood, and then began looking around at all the paintings which were moving. After about ten minutes of waiting, a Prefect showed up with the password (Pumpkin Juice), the five friends climbed into the common room. Sleepy and full of food, the boys merely mumbled that Catherine had to climb the stairs and go right to get to the girl's dormitory before they all headed off to bed.

Left on her own, Catherine gazed with wonder around the common room and plopped into a big, squishy arm chair right in front of the fire. She was about to fall asleep when someone tapped her on the shoulder. A pretty red head was looking at Catherine with a slight frown on her face.

"You're Catherine Campbell, right?" She said. Catherine nodded and stretched, yawning. "I'm Lily Evans," The red head said. Catherine smiled and knew immediately that this was the girl James hadn't shut up about the entire time she'd known him. "I'm a fifth year with you too. C'mon, let's go up to the dormitory before you fall asleep down here." Smiling now, she grabbed Catherine's hand and pulled her out of the armchair. "I saw you sitting with Potter at the feast." Lily said, leading the way up the spiral staircase.

"Yeah, I've been staying with his family over the summer."

"You what?" Lily stopped abruptly and turned around so quickly that Catherine almost ran into her. "You've been_ living_ with him? How can you stand it? He is _such_ a git!" Her vividly green eyes were full of annoyance.

"He seems really nice to me." Catherine said honestly. "I was really surprised when he didn't throw me out." Lily shook her head in disbelief and continued climbing the stairs.

"You'll have to tell me what that was like."

"Sure," Catherine agreed, she hoped that she and Lily would become friends. She'd never had a friend who was a girl before. Then again, she'd never really had friends before. They reached a door at the very top landing with a brass plaque that read 'Fifth Years'.

"Welcome home!" Lily said, pushing the door open. Three other girls were already in the circular room, sitting on three of the five beds. They introduced themselves as Eileen O'Reiley (a tall, pretty girl with brown hair and an athletic build), Arabella Smith (a short, plump girl with blonde hair), and Khristine Rudevsky ( a depressingly beautiful blonde girl with huge blue eyes and super model body). After staring blankly at them all for a minute, Catherine introduced herself, thinking to herself how she was ever going to be friends with a Russian supermodel when she was skinny with boring brown hair and boring green eyes.

When Lily told the other girls how Catherine had been living with James Potter for almost the whole summer, they all jumped onto her bed with her and begged Catherine to tell her story. When she got to the part when James caught her after she'd taken a shower, Arabella shrieked.

"What if he'd walked _in_ on you while you were in the _shower_!"

"Well, I'd locked the door so that might've stopped him. I took precautions and stuff." The girls all gestured for her to continue. When she got to the end, Eileen asked what Catherine had been dreading.

"Why did you run away in the first place? How come we've never seen you at school before?" The other girls looked at Catherine expectantly.

"Erm, well—"she began painfully.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Lily interjected.

"Thanks." Catherine said gratefully. "Maybe once it's less painful to talk about it, I'll tell you. But just know that there's no way I can ever go back. It was terrible. I have to stay away from Slytherin house while I'm here."

"Oh, honey, everyone wants to stay away from the Slytherins while they're here." Said Eileen.

"Come on, Eileen. They aren't all that bad!" Lily glared at her.

"She has a friend in Slytherin." Arabella whispered to Catherine.

"I think I'm going to bed." Lily said loudly and walked over to her bed, pulling the curtains around it behind her, hiding her from view.

"Me as vell." Khristine said tossing her magnificent, long blonde hair over her shoulder. "It vas nice to meet you."

Arabella and Eileen bid Catherine good-night and climbed into their own beds. Catherine put on her pajamas (she was amazed that her trunk was already up in the dormitory) and crawled under the covers. For a while she stared at the top of the canopy over the bed, thinking hard about everything that had happened today. She'd made a ton of new friends and had been sorted into the very house that her family hated. She smiled at the thought and rolled on to her side. Her last thought before she fell asleep was what her brother's face had looked like when she had stepped forward at the sorting ceremony. She severely hoped that her parents wouldn't be allowed to pull her out of school and drag her back home. Somehow, she felt that Professor Dumbledore and her new friends would protect her.

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**Thanks for reading! If you liked it please review and let me know! I'll give you a shout out at the beginning of the next chapter.**

**I'm going to try and post a new chapter every day or so for a while so you all have something to read! I know I don't really have to, but I want to make a system out of it. I'll try to make them longer too. **

**Until next time, neelie out!**


	4. Confrontation

**Hey everyone! Thanks for reading! This is the chapter when Catherine's brother confronts her. It was a little hard to write, but I got it in there! Without any further ado, I present the next chapter of The Fifth Marauder!**

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Catherine woke up the next morning with a pounding headache somewhere in the vicinity behind her left eye. She'd had unsettling dreams about her classes and being confronted by her brother. She groaned and sat up, finding the dormitory empty except for Eileen, who was still asleep. Catherine quietly changed out her pajamas and into her robes and tip-toed out. In the common room she ran into a puffy eyed, tired Remus who told her he was waiting for the rest of the boys to come down.

"I'll wait with you, then." Catherine hoped she sounded happier and more awake than she was; her headache had gotten worse when she got to the common room. Her nerves had started acting up again when she remembered that everyone ate breakfast together in the Great Hall—Aiden would be there too. She wasn't necessarily afraid of him, but was more afraid of what could happen to her when her parents found out she was at Hogwarts. Would she have to go back with them if they talked to Dumbledore?

"They wouldn't shut up last night until two in the morning." Said Remus as he slouched into an armchair. "I'd almost forgotten how crazy James and Sirius are. But it's good to be back." A thundering of feet on the stairs announced the arrival of James and Sirius, followed closely by Peter.

"G'morning, Kat!" James cried as he draped an arm across her shoulders and began pulling her out through the portrait hole. The other boys followed behind them. "If you thought the food at the feast last night was good, wait until you try Hogwarts breakfast! I'm starving!" The trip down to the Great Hall took a lot less time than the journey up to the common room the night before had—a bunch of starving boys will do that.

A low droning coming from the hall informed them that most of the school was already down eating by the time Catherine and the Marauders got there. Sitting down at the end of the Gryffendor's table, Sirius and James began pulling every available plate of food towards them, shoveling large amounts of it onto their own plates, and stuffing themselves away. Remus ate a little slower, but just as much and Peter ate even more. Catherine giggled at how much the boys were eating and helped herself to a plate of sausages.

While they were eating, Professor McGonagall came around with their schedules and they saw that they had potions with the Slytherins and transfiguration with the Ravenclaws after break. James groaned.

"First day back and we already have to deal with Snivellus!" Sirius snorted with disgust into his cereal.

"Whose Snivellus?" Catherine asked, taking a sip from her orange juice and watching in disgust as Peter swallowed large amounts of porridge.

"Slimy little git, is who he is." James glared across the hall to where the Slytherins were all sitting. Catherine couldn't figure out who we was glaring at, but just then Lily walked by with Khristine.

"Well, hey, Evans!" James waved cheekily at her over his plate of scrambled eggs. Lily ignored him completely.

"Good morning, Catherine! We would've woken you up when we came down to breakfast, but you and Eileen were out cold."

"That's alright." Catherine said, smiling. Lily and Khristine waved farewell and kept walking. Sirius watched Khristine walk away appreciatively, while Remus rolled his eyes at him.

"When do you think Khristine will finally go out with me?" He asked, turning back to his food after the two girls had exited the hall.

"Probably when you stop being friends with James," said Remus in a you-are-such-an-idiot voice.

"Why doesn't Evans like me?" James whined while he wiped scrambled eggs off his elbow. (He had stuck his elbow in his eggs while he watched Lily walk away)

"When you stop being an idiot." Remus answered in the same tone he had used with Sirius.

"Oh, bloody hell." Catherine had spotted Aiden walking across the hall—and he was coming this way! She took a deep breath and steeled herself for what was to come. Seeing her reaction, James looked around until his eyes fell on Aiden and he immediately lost the dreamy look that had been on his face (he had been thinking about Lily).

Aiden was much taller than Catherine, despite being younger. He was pale with jet black hair and cold, black eyes. When he approached their table he eyed Catherine with a look of extreme disgust as if she was something slimy and disgusting that had attached itself to his shoe.

"Mother and Father were wondering if you would show your face here," he said quietly, crossing his arms, his voice was hoarse and didn't at all fit his physique. "Imagine their reaction when I write to them and tell them that you're here and have been sorted into Gryffendor."

James stood up so that he was looking straight at Aiden. "Get out of here." He growled.

Aiden laughed. "Oh, sister. Is this the fool you stayed with? I can imagine that you weren't at all bored at night." Catherine flushed and he laughed again. "I guess it's a good thing that you enjoyed it while you could. At least he's a pure-blood." Aiden sneered.

"James' family was nice enough to let me stay with them after I escaped that hell hole. Nothing else happened." Catherine stood so that she was standing next to James, the two of them glaring daggers at Aiden. She cast a glance at the other boys. Sirius was eyeing the exchange with mild interest, while Remus looked between Catherine and Aiden wearily, fingering his wand; Peter looked terrified. His eyes kept flying back and forth between James and Aiden as if he were watching a tennis match. James had pulled out his wand.

"Better start counting your days here, Sister. I doubt you'll get to five before Mother and Father show up to drag you back home to the basement."

"I'd love to see them try." Catherine hissed back. There was no way that she was going back. When Aiden said "basement" Remus rose to stand with James and Catherine and Sirius' eyes widened. Seeing he was outnumbered, Aiden spat at the ground and turned and left. Trembling slightly, Catherine sat down heavily on the bench.

"Basement? They kept you in a BASEMENT?" James looked livid and Remus furious. "C'mon." James grabbed Catherine's arm and dragged her out of the hall, closely followed by Sirius, Remus, and Peter. He didn't stop until they were out on the grounds under a tree next to the lake. "Explain."

Staring at the ground, Catherine took a deep breath and explained in a quiet voice all about how her parents were crazy pure-blood freaks and only men mattered. She felt so ashamed of her family and angry at them that she sat on the ground, cradling her head in her hands. Someone put an arm around her shoulder.

"No way in hell are you going back there, Kat." It was James. "I'll right to my mum and dad today and ask them if we can get a new addition to the family."

Catherine lifted her head out of her hands. "What are you—"

"I'm saying that we're gonna adopt you and you never, ever have to go back to that place. No way." James said fiercely, pulling her to her feet. "And while we're at it, the Marauders will make sure that Aiden Campbell's life at school is hell, just like Snivellus."

Catherine's head was spinning. She wasn't really sure if the Potters would accept her as a daughter, but she was amazed that their son was this protective of her. She'd only met him a few weeks ago. "Who are the Marauders?", was all she could manage to say. Her other questions hurt too much to ask.

Sirius answered. "We are, the four of us." He pointed to himself, Remus, Peter, and James. "We're the biggest pranksters this school has ever seen."

"We'll look after you, Catherine." Remus said quietly, Peter nodded.

Catherine blinked up at them all. They were all so much taller than her (except for Peter, he was only a bit taller) and they were the best thing that had happened to her. Ever. She smiled.

"But, y'know, Catherine is a mouthful. How about we just call you Kat after all this?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, alright. Call me Kat then." She liked Kat better. 'Catherine' reminded her too much that that was what her parents had named her before tossing her aside. A deep, booming bell rang out across the grounds.

"If we don't hurry, we'll be late to potions!" Remus said. "The dungeons are a long way from here." Together, Kat and the Marauders headed inside to the first lesson of the day.

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When they got to Professor Slughorn's classroom, Arabella waved frantically at Kat to come and sit by her. Kat grinned and made her way over to Arabella's table on the far side of the classroom next to Khristine and Eileen; Lily was sitting with some Slytherin boy with greasy hair. The Marauders followed and sat at the two tables behind Kat and Arabella.

"I thought you were gonna be late!" Arabella said as Kat took her seat. "Slughorn doesn't like when people are late."

The bell rang again, announcing the start of the class. Slughorn stood up from his desk at the front of the classroom and began calling roll. He paused slightly when he reached Kat's unfamiliar name and looked up to find her. She raised her hand and he smiled at her, continuing on calling role. When he was done with roll, Slughorn started babbling on about some shrinking potion, but Kat wasn't listening. Sirius had chucked a note at her. She picked it up and read:

_Evans is sitting with Snivellus._

Kat scribbled back:

_He does look like a git._

And she tossed the note back to him. Sirius caught it and snorted with laughter, showing the note to James. Arabella elbowed Kat hard in the side and jerked her head toward the front of the room. Kat turned and saw Slughorn and the rest of the class looking expectantly at her.

"Erm—"

"I just asked, Miss Campbell, what would you leave out of a shrinking potion to turn it into a growth potion?" Slughorn looked annoyed.

"Erm—" said Catherine again.

"The answer, my dear, is the beetle eyes. The answer is on page 134 of your textbook." With that, Slughorn turned around and headed back to the front of the classroom to write the ingredients they would need to make a shrinking potion on the blackboard. "Use the directions on page 134 to brew a proper shrinking potion and bring a vial of it to me by the end of class!"

Kat was surprised that she was actually decent at potion making. It had been one of the only things that she couldn't teach herself while she was locked in her parents' basement—they would've noticed a boiling cauldron. Arabella was dreadful, and instead of her potion looking purple at the proper stage, it was a vivid, acid green. At the end of class, Slughorn was suitably impressed when Kat brought him her bottled potion. After class, Arabella was raving that Kat was a natural at potions and even Khristine was impressed (she had submitted a perfect potion Kat didn't understand how anyone could be so perfect).

Kat was right when she assumed that Professor McGonagall was strict. She told Kat point blank that she didn't put up with any horsing around in her class, a statement that would have had more impact if James and Sirius hadn't been acting like they were riding horses behind her. Kat suppressed a giggle and nodded to show Professor McGonagall that she understood. The rest of the lesson constituted them transfiguring (or trying to transfigure in Peter's case) tortoises into teapots, something that Professor McGonagall said might come up on their O.W.L.'s. By the end of the lesson, only James and Sirius had managed to turn their tortoises into teapots while everyone else's had refused to change; Remus had managed to turn his into a teapot, but instead of a handle, the teapot still had a tail; Kat's tortoise issued large quantities of steam whenever someone spoke. After dumping a load of homework on them, Professor McGonagall dismissed them.

"That was _easy_," Said James as they made their way up to the common room, "When are we going to do something hard?"

"I dunno, mate. Pumpkin Juice," Said Sirius to the Fat Lady. ("Right you are.") They sat in the squishiest armchairs and dumped their bags on the floor.

"So," said James to Kat, "since you're a girl you get to tell us all the stuff that Evans and the others talk about, okay?"

"Um, is that really necessary? I thought it would be pretty obvious what they say about you." Kat raised an eyebrow and looked at James. "They were horrified when I told them I spent the summer with you, asked me how I could put up with you for so long." Sirius laughed at the look on James' face. They spent the remainder of the day joking and playing exploding snap before going down to dinner. James said he'd meet them there.

"Well, I did it." James said, sitting down at the table next to Peter. "I sent the letter." He announced this with the air of having written to the Queen of England.

Kat smiled. "Thanks, James."

"No problem, I've always wondered what it would be like to have a little sister!"

"Hey, who says I'm younger?"

"I do!" James began stuffing his face with food again, just like he had at breakfast. Kat rolled her eyes and dug into her own dinner.

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**Again, thanks for reading! If you liked it please review and like I said before, suggestions for the story are always welcomed! And also suggestions for how they're going to mess with Aiden will be appreciated. Until next time, toodles!**


	5. Welcome to the Family!

**TA DAAAA! Chapter 5! Wow, I had no idea I was going to get all the way to chapter five...haha. I also changed the title to "The Runaway Marauder" since there's like a billion other stories called "The Fifth Marauder". I hope you guys don't mind the change.** **In this chapter, Kat's parents show up at Hogwarts so it gets a little crazy. **

**It'll be a while before I post again because I'm going on vacation for two weeks and won't really have access to a computer. I'll try to post if I can, but if I can't I'll just write in a notebook or something so when I get back I can post a few more chapters.**

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The rest of the week passed without too much incident. Kat got to know the castle and the Marauders better, and learned that she was decent in every subject (except for Divination but really, who needed it anyway?). James didn't hear back from his parents about adopting her, and Aiden kept his distance. Then, all at once, things started to get a little crazy.

The Tuesday of her second week at Hogwarts, Kat got a note at breakfast from a fourth year Hufflepuff.

"Are you Catherine Campbell?" the boy asked. Kat nodded. "Professor Dumbledore told me to give this to you." He handed her a slip of parchment and walked away.

"What's it say?" James asked curiously.

Kat read, and then reread the note. "It says I have to go see Professor Dumbledore in his office after I finish breakfast…and think of licorice wands?" She looked quizzically at the boys who all shrugged. She swallowed the rest of her bacon and bid the boys good-bye. She had no idea where Professor Dumbledore's office was, so she stood around in the entrance hall for a while looking up at the different moving staircases. Just when she was starting to get a little worried, Professor Sprout, the herbology teacher left the Great Hall. It was double lucky for Kat because she was supposed to be on her way to herbology after breakfast.

"Professor! Professor Sprout!" Kat shouted, jogging after her. "I'm supposed to go to see Professor Dumbledore after breakfast. Where's his office?"

Professor Sprout gave her a look that might have been pity and informed her that Dumbledore's office was on the third floor behind a gargoyle statue. "I know you're going to be missing class, dear." Professor Sprout said, before continuing on her way out to the greenhouses.

Even more curious now about why she was being called to Dumbledore's office, especially since Professor Sprout seemed to know why, Kat set off to find the gargoyle on the third floor. After several staircase changes, and wrong turns, she finally found it. The huge statue completely blocked the entrance to the office and Kat didn't see how she was supposed to get in. She looked down at the note clutched in her hand and read it again.

"Licorice wands?" she said out loud. To her immense surprise, the gargoyle sprang aside, revealing a staircase. Kat pocketed the note and began climbing and reached a door. She could hear voices through it, but it wasn't surprising. Whoever was behind the door was shouting at the top of their lungs and did not seem happy at all. Unsure what to do, Kat raised her hand and knocked.

The door swung open on a sight Kat had not expected. Professor Dumbledore was sitting calmly behind his desk with his hands folded while her mother was shrieking violent insults at Mr. and Mrs. Potter who were sitting in chairs across from the headmaster. Neither looked happy, but both were resolute. Kat's mother stopped shrieking when she saw her enter and instead glared at her viciously that Kat started to back out of the office. She could see her father sitting in one of the four chairs across from Dumbledore's desk.

"Oh, Merlin's beard." Kat breathed as she took in the scene before her eyes.

"Ah, welcome, Miss Campbell." Dumbledore said warmly, gesturing for Kat to fully enter his office. Kat stayed where she was.

"Dumbledore, I want my daughter back NOW. I want her back in my house where she belongs, and out of the way." Kat's father rose from his chair and slammed his fist on the headmaster's desk. Kat flinched. Her father was a tall, imposing man with dark hair and eyes just like his son. "I want this foolishness dealt with!"

"I can hardly allow you to take your daughter back into bondage, Mr. Campbell." Said Dumbledore softly. "I was under the impression that, during the past four years, you and your wife had been homeschooling Catherine. I can see now that I was sorely mistaken."

"What business do you have, trying to tell me how to raise my children?" Mrs. Campbell shrieked. She had a surprisingly deep voice for her slight figure and blonde hair. "How DARE you try and tell me what to do?" She rose from her chair as well.

"I don't pretend to try and tell you how to raise your children. But, I can assure you that what you have been doing is highly illegal and classified as child abuse. Mr. and Mrs. Potter have graciously offered to adopt Catherine." Dumbledore indicated the seated Potters. "Surely, it would be better for you if you didn't have to, er, deal with Miss Catherine anymore and she was out of your home. I'm sure she would not object."

"There's no way in hell I'm going back with you!" Kat shouted at her mother. "Erm—sorry, professor."

"There is no need to apologize, Catherine. You have every right to curse after what your parents have put you through."

"She'd better be damn grateful we didn't just throw her out!" Kat's mother lunged towards Kat, but Mr. Potter jumped up and stood in her way.

"Catherine is a fine girl. You should be ashamed of the way you've been treating her all these years. She will be welcomed into our home in a way that she never was in yours!" He hissed, pulling Kat closer to him and his wife.

As if hoping to stop any further hostilities, Professor Dumbledore rose as well. "Well, it's settled then. I will be sending both families and the ministry paperwork to make the adoption final. Now, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, if you would please excuse us, I need to speak with the Potters and Catherine alone for a moment."

Kat's father rose and nodded. "Getting rid of a useless daughter would be a great relief." He grabbed his wife's arm and began steering her towards the door. Kat's mother however, was not going to go quietly.

She shrieked at Kat. "YOU ARE A DISGRACE AND A DISAPPOINTMENT. WE SHOULD HAVE THROWN YOU OUT THE THIRD FLOOR WINDOW THE DAY YOU WERE BORN!" She plunged her hand into her robes and pulled out her wand, shouting a curse as she did so. Professor Dumbledore was faster. He cast a shield spell between Kat and her mother and disarmed Kat's mother. He then conjured rope and bound her hands behind her back.

"Mr. Campbell, if you would be so kind as to take your wife off this campus and never enter it again. I cannot allow people to attack my students." His eyes were blazing and Kat's father hurried to drag his wife from the room. When they were gone, Dumbledore resumed his seat behind his desk and Mr. Potter sat down again.

Kat sat trembling in the seat vacated by her father. She was in total shock. Her mother, her _mother _had just tried to hex her. She had known she was evil, but didn't know just how bad she was. She could hear Dumbledore speaking with Mr. and Mrs. Potter, but couldn't make out what he was saying. Instead, all she could do was gaze around at the portraits of former headmasters and mistresses that covered the walls.

"Catherine, do you have anything you want to say?" Kat jumped and turned to see the three adults staring at her. Mrs. Potter had just spoken to her.

To her utter embarrassment, tears welled up in her eyes and Kat began to sob uncontrollably. She buried her face in her hands and positively howled. She heard more voices, as if at a great distance and then someone was holding her in their arms; a faint whiff of perfume told her it was Mrs. Potter. Kat had no memory of ever being hugged by an adult, and the thought made her cry harder.

After several long moments, Kat pulled away and started to wipe her face. Professor Dumbledore handed her a handkerchief. Kat stared at it for a moment and then started giggling—she hadn't thought that people carried handkerchiefs with them anymore (then again, Dumbledore wasn't exactly young).

"Welcome to the family, Catherine." Mrs. Potter smiled and Kat smiled back at her.

"Wait until we tell James the good news." Mr. Potter leaned over his wife's shoulder to give Kat a hug.

"Ah, that reminds me." Dumbledore said quietly, turning to address one of the portraits. "I need you to find James Potter for me and tell him to come here." The little man in the portrait said "Aye, aye!" and disappeared out of his frame. "I will leave you for a few minutes now." He climbed the staircase in the rear of his office and disappeared through a door.

Kat sat in silence as Mr. and Mrs. Potter talked about giving her the Purple Room in their house for her permanent bedroom and going on vacation with them this summer. Kat didn't really hear them. She was still marveling at the fact that she would never have to deal with her parents again. Aiden, however, was a whole other story.

James walked in about ten minutes later looking curious and slightly confused. His mouth dropped when he spotted his parents. "Mum! Dad! What're you doing here?" When his mother finished explaining, he punched the air in excitement. "Aw, yeah! I got a sister now!" He ran forward and swept Kat off her chair in a bone breaking hug. "Welcome to the family!"

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**Well, that wraps up Chapter 5. Please, please, please review with your thoughts. Even if you hated it so much that you wanted to reach through the screen to punch me, please let me know. Although I really hope no one hated it enough to actually want to do that...**

**I'll try to post at some point while I'm on vacation, but I can't make any promises :( **


	6. Teacups and Cloaks

_**This is an updated version of this chapter. There were some things wrong with it that I wanted to fix, so this marks the beginning of me going back through the story and changing/fixing things.**_

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The first few days after the adoption passed in a sort of blur for Kat. This was mostly due to the fact that, in a fit of excitement, James had set off the largest amount of dungbombs in the school's history, and thus a faint haze filled most of the corridors. By the start of the next week, however the air cleared.

The class that Kat was looking forward to the most was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but she had to wait for after dinner before they had their first class. This year, all of the Defense classes were scheduled for dusk. Naturally, a lot of rumors swirled around this because of the class's reputation. The fact that Professor Clark hardly ever showed up at meals and was only present in the Great Hall at dinner added fuel to the fire.

In between classes Charms and dinner, Lily pulled Kat aside to talk.

"Hey, so you have any plans for tonight after class?" Lily smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Kat could see James gawking from behind Lily; he really lost his head when she was around.

"Well, I was planning on finishing that essay on Odwin the Odd for Professor Binns…"

"Oh, good. You can do that later" she waved a hand dismissively and Kat raised an eyebrow.

It wasn't that she really minded putting off Binns' homework, she was just amazed that Lily was telling her to do so. "We have our first meeting for the Slug Club tonight and we're supposed to bring someone new." Lily beamed at Kat.

"Slug…Club? What the bloody hell is that?"

"Professor Slughorn set it up. He invites people who he thinks are special or who have really awesome abilities and connections and stuff." She turned a bit pink. "He invited me because of how good I am in potions." It was true, after Severus Snape, Lily was best in the year. "So, do you want to come?"

Kat really wanted to say no. James and Sirius would laugh their butts off if they found out she'd been invited to something called the "Slug Club". But then Lily gave her the big puppy dog eyes and she had to give in. "Oh, alright. Do I have to do anything?"

"Nope," said Lily happily. "All you have to do is be ready to go at five! Professor Slughorn gives us dinner so we don't have to eat in the Great Hall." Lily waved and then trotted off down the hall. Thinking that the day was probably going to get bad once James and Sirius caught wind of the Slug Club, Kat followed at a slower pace.

The Gryffindors had Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Ravenclaws. The teacher, Professor Clark was a tall, extremely pale blonde with a severe obsession with girls, particularly Kat. Each class, the girls would all sit in the back of the classroom with plenty of space between them and Professor Clark. And each class, he would pull Kat (and sometimes another girl) to the front of the classroom to sit at the table right in front of his desk. Through the entire lesson, he would continually stare at Kat and the rest of the girls in the class. The Marauders had taken to sitting at the table near the front one so that they could "take some action" if Clark stepped waaaay over the line.

Kat always found it extremely difficult to concentrate and work in this class because she found Professor Clark so creepy. He would often call her up to his desk to "inspect" her work, when really all he ever did was leer at her. James and Sirius, of course, were top in the class and did everything perfectly, followed closely by Remus. They always kept a close eye on Kat and the professor though. The dark windows in the classroom didn't help ease her feelings much.

After an extremely awkward double session, classes were finally done for the day. Heading up to the common room with the rest of the Gryffindors, the Marauders and Kat muttered darkly about Professor Clark.

"He's just so _creepy_. If he even lays one hand on me I'll hex him to pieces." Kat squirmed.

"We'll all jinx him to pieces with you," said Sirius darkly. At first, he had been rather cold and distant with Kat, granted he still was most of the time, and would just stare steadily at her with those grey eyes of his whenever Kat said anything to him, but now he had warmed up to her. A bit. Well, maybe less than a bit, but Kat still appreciated his…attempt at friendship.

While the boys were still muttering darkly about what they would like to do to the sleaze ball of a professor, Kat studied them. She still found Peter faintly disconcerting (he was constantly trying to eat three different types of food at once and failing miserably at it) and she thought his eyes moved around too much. Even as she thought this, Peter's eyes were flying from James to Sirius to Remus, to around the corridor, back to his food, to the portraits they were passing, to the other students, and then back to his friends. She decided that she really like Remus, though. He was quiet, thoughtful, and kind despite his ever tired appearance and the scar that ran across his cheek. He was beginning to look rather pale though, as if he was getting sick. Kat hoped it wasn't anything too bad. James was confident and animated as ever. Her adopted brother he ran his hand through his hair as he acted out cursing Clark. She was still completely flabbergasted that he was her brother now...And then there was Sirius. Once she had gotten passed the relatively austere and haughty way he treated new people (the first thing he'd ever said to her was a comment about her weight for crying out loud!) she could fully appreciated how he looked. The face that had once only been handsome and haughty to Kat was now handsome and relatively nice. She supposed that James could never really be best friends with someone who wasn't as nice as he was. Sirius caught Kat staring at him and smirked slightly. _Well, there goes the supposed nice part,_she thought to herself.

"Oh, hey! I just remembered. Kat, why were you talking to Evans before Sleaze Ball's class?" asked James.

"What, am I not allowed to have friends who are girls?" Kat said sarcastically. Sirius smirked again.

"Well, why do you need any more friends when you have us?" James threw his arms around Remus' and Peter's shoulders and grinned cheekily back at her. Kat responded with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, since you're being so nosey, Lily invited me to go with her to this thing called the Slug Club. Have you all ever heard of it?" James and Sirius both groaned.

"That's the thing that Slughorn invites the smartest kids to or the ones with the most famous parents. James and I were invited a few years ago. We never went back to a meeting after the first one." Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Wait, if he invites all of the smart kids, how come you weren't invited, Remus?"

Remus blanched and said quickly, "Slughorn doesn't…approve of me."

"Approve of you? What do you mean?"

Before Remus had a chance to respond, Sirius bellowed a big "OH!"

"I just thought of a way to annoy Clark!" everyone stared at him expectantly and Kat completely forgot what she had asked Remus. "You know how he always drinks tea right before the start of class?" They all nodded. "All we have to do is replace his tea cup with one of those nose biting ones from Zonko's!" Their table roared with laughter and several heads in the hall turned their way curiously.

"But, isn't that dangerous? I mean, we'd have to break into his office and what if the tea cup bites his nose off?" Kat gasped after she recovered from her bought of giggles.

"Don't worry about it; we have a foolproof way of getting into his office. No way will we get caught" said James and Peter and Sirius looked knowingly at him, Remus looked a little too sick to really care about what was going on.

"Alright, if you're sure about it. He's a total creeper…"

"Are you gonna be alright enough to do this one with us, Moony?" It took a while before Kat realized James was talking to Remus. She hadn't realized that the Marauders all had nicknames too. She guessed even she sort of had a nickname, after all, no one in the school called her Catherine anymore.

"I don't think so." Remus mumbled. He was even paler than he had been in the morning and there was a weird glint in his eye. Kat thought he might be feverish.

"Maybe you should go to the hospital wing, then." She suggested. He nodded and changed course, leaving Kat worrying about him.

"D'you think he's gonna be okay?" She asked everyone. James shrugged.

"Give him a few days and he'll be fine." Kat bit her lip but didn't comment.

"Alright, James, do you have any more tea cups from last year?" Sirius asked.

"Na, I was planning on picking some more up on the next Hogsmead visit."

"But that isn't for weeks still." Kat said gloomily. Despite being worried about Remus, she was really looking forward to pranking Professor Clark. He seriously freaked her out.

Sirius grinned. "Maybe it's time to introduce Kat here to a fantastic friend of ours." James grinned back at him. "Good thing we don't have anything to do the rest of the evening."

"I was going to start the essay on Odrick the Odd for Binns" Peter whined.

"Fine," hissed Sirius. "And it's Odwin the Odd, not Odrick. You go work on your essay and James and I will take Kat."

"Take me where?"

"You'll see." James took an abrupt turn and pushed aside a tapestry. Kat and Sirius followed, but Peter said that he would go to the common room to work on his essay. "I'll fail if I don't…" James pulled something silvery from his bag.

"Woah, what _is_ that?" Kat said, staring at the mercurial surface.

"It's an invisibility cloak." James said proudly. "My dad gave it to me, and his dad gave it to him. It's been in the family for generations."

"An invisibility—"

"Cloack, yeah. Watch this." James threw the cloak over his shoulders and suddenly, his shoulders weren't there! Only his head was floating as if in midair. Kat's jaw dropped. Sirius smirked at her reaction. "This is how we do most of our sneaking around the school and pranking people. You just throw it over your head like this (Kat assumed that his arms threw the cloak over his head; she couldn't see them) and you're completely invisible!"

Kat gaped open mouthed at the spot where James had just vanished. "D'you see how we have a foolproof way to get into Clark's office?" Sirius asked her.

Kat nodded. "But how are we going to get a nose biting teacup on such short notice? I didn't think owls were really allowed to carry stuff like that into Hogwarts."

"They're not." James' voice came from right behind her and she jumped two feet in the air. Sirius snickered and she could hear James snort. "We have to go get them." James's whole body appeared out of midair and he held the invisibility cloak in one hand. "Just follow me and Sirius." He said before draping the cloak over all three of them.

It was unnerving, walking past people knowing that they couldn't see you, but you could see them. They saw Professor McGonagall telling off some sixth year Slytherin in the hall for shoving a first year down, walked by Professor Slughorn picking his nose, and narrowly avoided walking through a corridor where Peeves the Poltergeist was zooming around with a bucket of red paint, covering the walls in it. Kat lost track of how many times they turned and how many tapestries they moved aside before she was standing in front of a humpbacked statue. Looking around to make sure no one was coming down the corridor, Sirius gave the humpback a tap with his wand and muttered something and it opened like a hatch.

"Well, in you go." He whispered quietly, gesturing at the dark hole that used to be the statue's back. Kat swallowed, and then hoisted herself up and through the hole.

Her feet touched down on a slightly damp, earthen floor and she was reminded strongly of the cellar her parents had kept her locked in for years. A moment of panic hit her as the memory of the place came pouring back. She almost fainted with relief when Sirius landed behind her, followed by James. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that they were in a passage that disappeared off into darkness up ahead.

"Lumos!" Sirius' wand tip ignited.

"Where does this lead to?" Kat asked. Her voice echoed loudly in the dark tunnel.

"You'll see." James stuffed the invisibility cloak back into his bag and lit his wand as well. Then, he set off down the tunnel with Sirius following behind. Not wanting to get left behind, Kat scurried to catch up with them.

Kat was just about to ask them how much longer they had to keep walking, when the tunnel began to slope upwards. About five minutes later, Sirius stopped so abruptly that Kat crashed right into him. He turned around and stared at her.

"Sorry." Kat whispered. She could see James in front of Sirius, tapping on what looked like a wooden trap door.

"The coast's clear." He said and opened it and scrambled up. Sirius followed him, but somehow managed to make scrambling look easy. The boys had to reach down and pull Kat up because she was too short to do so herself.

She looked around and saw that they were in a basement with stacks and stacks of boxes, all labeled with things like "Drooble's" and "Berty Bot's". "We aren't in the school anymore, are we?"

James grinned. "It's good to know that my sister isn't a total dingbat. Now c'mon, let's go." He threw the invisibility cloak back over them all and led them up a flight of stairs and out into…Honeyduke's?

"Merlin's pants! We're in Hogsmead?" Kat asked her eyes wide. James shushed her and they left the store. "That passage leads into Hogsmead?" She asked again.

"Obviously." Said Sirius.

Kat watched, wide eyed as witches and wizards went about their last minute evening shopping around them. She even saw a few goblins and what looked like a hag. They stopped in front of a shop whose sign read "Zonko's Joke Shop".

"You guys wait out here, Zonko likes me. I'll be back." And with that, James slipped out from under the cloak and left Kat and Sirius alone.

"This is so amazing." Kat breathed, staring around at the village. She had never been to somewhere so big before. Then again, the only other places she had ever been were James' house, Hogwarts, and her parent's basement (and all the other houses that she had broken into to steal food from), but she had always stayed away from villages. Sirius merely grunted in acknowledgement.

Five awkward minutes later, James reappeared from the store carrying a bulging bag and looked around him. Sirius picked up a rock and chucked it at him, snickering as it smacked James in the side of the head.

"Hey!" James followed the trajectory of the rock and slipped back under the invisibility cloak. "Not funny." He said, rubbing the side of his face but laughing himself. A wizard was just about to close and lock the door when they slipped back into Honeyduke's.

"Today was a good day," he said to the witch behind the counter. James steered their way carefully around the man and they slowly scooted their way back to the cellar, startling both the wizard and the little witch behind the counter when the cellar door opened by itself. Thirty minutes later they were back inside the school.

"Now all we have to do is switch the cup!" James said, grinning wickedly.

"What else did you buy, mate? That bag is huge!" asked Sirius, eyeing James' bulging shopping bag.

James grinned even wider. "I just restocked on some stuff." He said evasively and Sirius grinned.

Sirius glanced at his watch. "Curfew's almost here. We'd better do it fast."

_Curfew? But only a few minutes ago it was dinner!_Thought Kat._Where had the day gone? They must've spent way more time in Hogsmead than she realized._

After dodging Peeves again (he was on to another corridor, this time armed with orange paint), they made it to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Professor Clark kept his tea set right on his desk in the front of the classroom. After checking quickly to make sure no one was inside, the cloaked trio snuck in. Since Clark was so nasty to Kat, she got the honor of swapping out the cups. Once that was done, they left the classroom and pulled off the cloak and starting walking to dinner in the Great Hall. The only problem was that they had forgotten to check if anyone was outside the classroom before they pulled off the cloak.

"What were you three doing in my classroom?" Professor Clark yelled. James and Sirius raised their eyes to the ceiling and shrugged. Kat swallowed uncomfortably.

"I thought I forgot my quill in there after class, Professor." Kat said the first thing that came to her mind. "My friends here were helping me look for it."

Professor Clark's blazing eyes softened when he heard Kat's excuse. "The next time you think you left something, just come and ask me by yourself, Miss Campbell." He said in his sickeningly sweet voice.

"Please, sir. My name is Potter now. I've been adopted."

"Oh, yes. That's right." He smiled at her. _Gross. _ "Well, Miss Potter, next time just ask me if you've lost something."

"Right." Said Kat awkwardly. She said good-bye and then she, James, and Sirius hurried up the staircases to their common room.

"Good thinking there, Kat," said James. Kat beamed at him. "It's also good to know that my new sister is quick to come up with a lie. We can make a club."

At the mention of club, Kat swore. "I forgot about Lily's Slug Club thing! She's going to be so mad!"

"I don't know if you're going to have any girl friends for long, Kat," said Sirius, pointing at Lily, Eileen, Khristine, and Arabella, all of whom had just passed and were looking sulky. Lily looked furious. "They're all in the club, too y'know."

"I guess I'll deal with that tomorrow."

"And after you do that, you get to look forward to watching a teacup try and bite Professor Sleaze's nose right off!" James said merrily, strolling down the corridor with his chest puffed out.

"It'll be an interesting day tomorrow." Kat mused, smiling despite herself.


	7. Halloween

**Hello, hello and welcome to Chapter Seven! Thank you all so much for reading! I didn't think this many people would actually like my writing. Then again, maybe even more people do and you just don't review...hmmmm**

**So after this chapter, it will probably be at least a week before I can post again. I've had to steal my mom's laptop to type this up and she doesn't actually know that I'm writing a fan fiction. She thinks I'm working on school work...heh heh**

**If you like, please, please, please, review! I seriously appreciate them and they make me go absolutely balistic when I get them. I'll give you an awesome virtual peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie if you do! :D**

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Kat woke up to the wonderful smell of baking pumpkin and cinnamon wafting through the dorm. It was the last day of October and the Halloween feast was tonight. She couldn't believe that she'd already been at Hogwarts for almost two months. In those two months, she'd grown closer to all of the Marauders except for Sirius. She had hoped that after the biting tea cup incident (in which everyone involved had received a week of detentions when Professor Clark found out who was responsible) Sirius might be a bit warmer towards her, but she was sadly mistaken. It seemed that Sirius had some sort of grudge against her and only ever scowled or smirked sarcastically at her. She had tried everything, but so far Sirius remained unimpressed.

Kat sighed and sat up in bed and saw that the rest of her roommates were still asleep. After trying to apologize to Lily for missing the Slug Club meeting, Lily was still ignoring Kat. James assured her that she wasn't really missing anything, but Kat really missed talking to Lily. The rest of the girls in the Fifth Year Girl's Dormitory seemed to follow whatever Lily did. Arabella devotedly followed Lily everywhere, while Eileen and Khristine followed at a more relaxed, slightly interested pace.

The light filtering in through the window was turning the room a faint, dusky pink; obviously the sun had not quite risen yet. Carefully and quietly, Kat slipped on her dressing gown and headed downstairs to the common room. She had been expecting it to be empty, but surprisingly her favorite armchair was already occupied.

Sirius was staring moodily into the embers of the fire from the night before and when he looked up and saw Kat standing in front of him, he looked even surlier. He didn't answer Kat's good-morning. After sitting in what Kat thought of as an awkward silence for a good ten minutes, Kat broke it.

"Do you not like me or something?"

"Well, I thought that was obvious" Sirius replied icily.

"What did I do to make me dislike you so much?" As far as Kat knew, for the months that she had been friendly and nice to him. He only seemed to really tolerate her because she was James' sister now. He seemed to have a deep, personal dislike for her and she had no idea why or how to fix it. Sirius absolutely baffled her. "Why do you hate me so much?" she asked again when he made no reply.

Sirius turned to her and gave her an appraising look. There was a look in his eye that Kat hadn't seen him wear before. It was jealousy. "You did it first" he said quietly, gazing fiercely into her face.

Puzzled, Kat cocked her head. "Did what first?" Sirius always seemed to be the King-of-Doing-Things-First. He had been the first to suggest the first prank of the year, the first to trap Peeves in a suit of armor (now a school legend), and had first choice of all the girls at school but passed them all up. Kat had no idea what she had done first that Sirius resented her first. Kat had no idea what she had done first that Sirius resented her for. Perhaps, it was because she had lived in a basement first…she thought.

"You left first."

"'Left first'? What d'you—oh." Could it be that Sirius was angry that she ran away from her parents? She knew that his family life left something to be desired—he was cousins with Bellatrix and Narcissa for Christ's sake.

"I wish I had the guts to just up and leave like you did. I've been thinking about it for ages but I haven't done it yet." Sirius turned in his armchair and crossed his legs so that he was directly facing her.

"You've been thinking about leaving?" She was amazed. Then again, over the summer Sirius had been over at the Potter's house every day, spending the night on more than one occasion; he never seemed to want to go home.

"My parents are a bunch of pure-blooded, inbred idiots. They're like first cousins or something, y'know?" he wrinkled his nose. "They've even brainwashed my younger brother."

"Wait, you have a younger brother?" Never once, in the entire time that she had known him had Sirius ever mentioned that he had a brother.

"Yeah, I have a brother. He's turned into a carbon copy of my father. We don't even speak anymore. He's in Slytherin" he said, as if that settles the matter. Kat continued to pay attention; a Sirius Black gushing about his home life obviously didn't happen often. "Any way, my parents already practically disowned me. We have this tapestry that's been in the family for ages—since the Middle Ages I think. Anyway, my dear old mum keeps threatening to blast me off of it. As if I actually cared about the 'most noble and ancient house of Black'." Sirius averted his eyes and glowered back into the smoldering embers.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Birds were chirping outside of the common room windows and the sky was becoming brighter. The house elves down in the kitchens were busy preparing for the Halloween feast and the smell of baking pumpkin had grown stronger and more mouthwatering.

"Where will you go?" Kat asked softly.

Sirius smiled wryly at her. "James' of course. The Potters are my real family. I've made up my mind now, thanks to you. I'm moving out by the end of this term. I'll be spending Christmas with you and the rest of the family." For the first time in the four months he and Kat had known each other, Sirius smiled at her. The fact that it was a real smile, and not a sarcastic smirk made his handsome face all the more good-looking and Kat couldn't help but smile back.

She was still grinning like an idiot when James and Remus arrived downstairs ten minutes later. She felt that the fragile little world she had constructed around her since she ran away had grown stronger. Now that she knew why Sirius had disliked her, she knew the reason behind his haughty demeanor. She knew the feeling of being stuck in a situation where she was completely miserable and could do nothing about it. Thanks to her new friends, she had discovered that she could be happy and excited and actually goof off like a normal teenager. She hoped that Sirius would realize the same thing soon.

Kat, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter spent the day out on the grounds lying under a tree next to a lake, munching on toast they'd taken from breakfast. After chucking the last few pieces to the giant squid, James said he was bored.

"We could play tag with the Whomping Willow." Peter suggested.

Sirius snorted. "C'mon, Pete. Don't you think it's kinda cheating that we know exactly how to get to the trunk?"

"Oh, yeah." The day before, they had shown Kat the exact way to weave through the swinging branches to touch the trunk. Surprisingly, Kat was quite good at it. It probably had something to do with living in a basement.

"Just don't fall asleep under this tree again, Kat. You don't want to get locked out again." Remus prodded Kat, waking her up (she had started to doze). Kat had got into what James called a "tiring habit" (pun intended) and had started to fall asleep under the beech tree they were currently sitting under. The last time she had done it, she woke up at three in the morning with the castle doors locked. The Marauders had had a fit when they woke up in the morning and didn't see her at breakfast. When they found out that she had slept outside all night, they all thought it was hilarious. Everyone except for Remus, he seemed really worried about it.

"I'll try not to, Remus." Kat smiled at him and the corners of his mouth twitched. Remus was starting to look sickly and pale again.

After a few more hours of watching Sirius and James wrestle and Remus helping Kat with some Transfiguration homework, it was time for the Halloween feast. On the way in to the Great Hall, they ran into the last group of people Kat wanted to see. Her brother, Aiden was surrounded by his Slytherin posse.

"Hello, sister" he said, blocking the door to the entrance hall.

"Get out of the way" Kat snarled. She was hungry and dying to try the roast beef that James had been raving about all day.

"Tut, tut" chided one of Aiden's friends, a boy who looked remarkably like Sirius. "I guess you haven't taught your new friend any manners, Sirius."

"Move,Regulus" Sirius growled. If Kat wasn't so busy glaring at her brother, she would have realized that Sirius was speaking to his younger brother, but as it was she was busy. Sibling was glaring daggers at sibling, and neither pair was relenting any. Sirius' hand began straying to his pocket where his wand was.

Regulus leaned forward and whispered in Sirius' ear. Whatever he said caused Sirius to flush a light pink and before any of them knew it, Sirius cast a curse at his brother. Kat reacted a split second later and cried out a jinx of her own just as Aiden and Regulus cast spells. A cloud of orange smoke appeared, completely shutting off Kat's line of site and she felt herself being blown back. When the smoke cleared, Kat's feet were doing a mad tap dance, Sirius was sporting a heavy nose bleed he was trying to stop with overly large hands, and Regulus was bent over shrieking with laughter as Sirius' tickling charm went to work. Kat herself was unhurt, as her jinx had missed Aiden (naturally…). James was staring openmouthed at the lot of them and Peter was shaking. Remus looked just as alarmed as James.

Unluckily, at that moment Professor McGonagall decided to appear. She marched over the entrance hall imperiously and seemed beyond words in her fury.

"Black…Campbell….fighting…thirty points….each house…never in my life…" She controlled her anger long enough to mutter the counter charm to stop Kat from dancing and Regulus from laughing. She sent Sirius to the hospital wing to have his nose bleed stopped and his hands returned to normal size with a promise to speak with him later. She then turned her attention to Kat, Regulus, and Aiden. "Fighting amongst students is absolutely forbidden here at Hogwarts. I understand that family feuds are difficult to deal with, but please never again deal with them at school. You will each be receiving two weeks of detention and thirty points will be deducted from each of your houses."

"But Professor—" James tried to break in.

"Do not interrupt me, Potter or you will find yourself in detention as well!" McGonagall's nostrils were flared and she looked incredibly intimidating. "Now," she said imperiously, turning back to the troublemakers, "please control yourselves and try to enjoy the feast!" With that she turned and stomped out of the entrance hall. Aiden and Regulus, followed by their posse who had stayed out of the confrontation, followed Professor McGonagall into the Great Hall. Kat stared moodily at the spot on the floor where some of Sirius' blood had dripped. She was furious with herself for missing Aiden.

"We'll get those slimy gits back, Kat." James said.

"Shut up." She replied grumpily.

After that fiasco, the Halloween feast was much less enjoyable than Kat had been hoping for. Sirius showed up half way through in a mood as dark as his last name and sat next to Kat. The two of them hardly said anything to the others and just sat and ate the food without really tasting it.

When they returned to the common room, Kat bid the boys good-night before storming up to her dormitory. She was still fuming about the incident with her brother, but glad that she had had someone with her to help fight. She was certain that if she'd been alone, something much worse would have happened. Still furious, she ripped back the curtains on her bed and fell into an angry slumber.

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**And so it ends. What happens if Kat continues to get locked out of the castle at night..? I wonder...mwahaha.**

**If you liked it, please please please review and you'll get one of those tasty cookies I promised you! It's kinda sad that I have to resort to bribing people with virtual cookies for you all to review...so review just once, even if you didn't like it (constructive criticism is alway appreciated) and I'll stop blabbing about wanting reviews here.**

**Until next chapter,**

**Toodles!**


	8. Madame Pudifoot's

**Hey everyone! Sorry it took so long to get this next chapter posted! But I'm back from vacation, so here it is! **

**I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has Favorited/ reviewed my story! Thank you so much! You keep me going in my writing. And a super special shout out to my best friend who helps me write this! She knows who she is! I actually put her in the story...**

**Anywho, please after review/ favorite! All comments are much appreciated!**

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November came and went in a fury of constant torrential downpour. Kat got to see James and Eileen play in the first Quidditch match of the season again Ravenclaw. The rain had made it difficult to see, but Gryffendor flattened Ravenclaw 260 to 50 and James didn't stop raving about it for weeks. Surprisingly, (with ample help from Remus, James, and even Sirius on occasion) Kat started to excel in her classes. She was fairly decent at Transfiguration (thanks to James and Sirius) and had even pulled ahead of Lily at being the best in the year at Charms. Her potion's grade continued to impress Slughorn who was now inviting her to Slug Club events incessantly. To Kat, Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures seemed like commonsense. Divination was easy because all she had to do was work with Sirius and James to make up horrible things happening to them.

Defense Against the Dark Arts however, still imposed a heavy challenge. Professor Clark had turned the majority of his attention to Lily, something that made James furious. Every class period, James through a whispered fit to Sirius about how they had to do something about it.

"I mean, if Dumbledore knew this shit was going on, he wouldn't stand for this, right?"

Despite the fact that she no longer had Professor Clark trying to look down her blouse or up her skirt, Kat still found it next to impossible to perform even the simplest defensive magic. She could easily identify and handle the various creatures that Clark brought into class (redcaps, grindylows, etc.) but the defensive spells just went in one year and out the other. Remus was tutoring her nightly in them just so that she could keep up with the mound of homework the rest of the teachers assigned to prepare them for their upcoming O.W.L.'s.

The constant bad weather and mass of homework only allowed Kat to sleep outside twice the entire month of November. She reveled in sleeping out under the stars after spending all of those years cooped up in the basement. So far, she hadn't gotten into any trouble with any of the teachers for spending nights outside. The increasingly cold weather and rainy days and nights were discouraging Kat from staying out through the night now anyway.

While she could escape the teachers' notice about sleeping outside, she couldn't escape from weekly encounters with her brother. James was stepping into his "big brother" role wholeheartedly and exchanged rather threatening and vicious remarks with Aiden. Sometimes she ran into him and his posse in the company of the Marauders, at which point all they would do was exchange snarls and insultsOther times she ran into him when she was by herself on the way to the library or bathroom. These occasions provided excellent opportunities for her to both show off her skill in Charms and practice her dismal defense. Her favorite hex by far was the Bat-Bougie Hex. Her aim had improved but often the outcome of these encounters, even though Aiden was younger, was that Kat would end up with some sort of issue that Madam Pomfry in the hospital wing would have to fix for her.

The final trip to Hogsmead before the Christmas holidays was scheduled for the last Saturday of the term. Kat was going home with James and hopefully, Sirius while Remus was going home and Peter was staying at school. Pete's parents were taking a trip to Palma de Majorca for their anniversary so he had to stay at school.

After their last class on Friday (Charms), Kat followed the Marauders out onto the grounds. The first snow of the season had fallen while they were in class and was now neatly covering everything. Kat scrapped together a large amount of snow and lobbed it at James' head. It smacked him upside the face with a wet thud and he roared.

"You little—" his next words were drowned out as another snowball, thrown by Peter hit him right in the face. With a bellow, James grabbed Sirius by the arm and raced to hide behind a row of shrubs that had transformed into a snow wall. Before they knew it, a massive battle raged between team James-Sirius and team Peter-Kat-slightly reluctant Remus. After a few minutes spent torn between exasperation and enjoyment, Remus entered full-heartedly into the heated fray. An hour later, soaking wet and gasping the friends trudged back up to Gryffendor tower to get warm and dry before dinner.

"So where do you guys want to go tomorrow in Hogsmead?" James asked at dinner.

"I'm running out of sugar quills," said Kat.

"Honeyduke's it is!" James declared. "What about you, Sirius?"

"Huh?" Sirius was sitting with his chin propped up on his hand and gazing out into space.

"You all there, mate?" James raised his eyebrow.

"Wait a minute," Remus said, leaning across the table. "I've seen that look before. That's the face James makes when he's thinking about going on a date with Lily!" They all gasped.

"What's up, Sirius? You'd better tell us!" James was torn between anger at not being told something by his best friend and amusement that somehow Sirius could look dreamily into space.

"It's nothing. I'm not going to Hogsmead tomorrow," said Sirius gruffly, piling mashed potatoes onto his plate."

"Riiiiiiight," chimed Kat sarcastically. Sirius shot her a glare and she shut up. She sensed she was still on iffy ground with him.

"We haven't seen the last of this." Remus mouthed as he too began to dig in to the potatoes.

The morning of the trip to Hogsmead was bright and clear, with a bitter wind burning their faces as James, Remus, Peter, and Kat marched down to the courtyard, padded with scarfs, mittens, extra socks and cloaks. They left Sirius sitting in the common room with his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, claiming to be catching up on some studying.

"As if he actually has to study. I'm the only one who really does!" Peter had said after the Fat Lady's portrait swung shut behind them.

Kat thoroughly enjoyed visiting Hogsmead. After her adoption by the Potters had been made official, her new parents had signed the required permission slip for her to visit the village with the rest of her friends.

The first place they visited was Honeyduke's so Kat could stock up on sugar quills. Lily, Eileen and Arabella were inside scooping Berty Bott's Every Flavored Beans into containers. They greeted Kat and the others cheerfully enough, but quickly left after making their purchases. Their group looked strangely bland without Khristine's beautiful Russian presence to brighten any room up. James loaded up on Chocolate Frogs while Remus scrutinized the display of odd treats (Acid Pops, blood flavored lollipops, cockroach clusters) and Peter bought a large block of chocolate.

They wandered the streets for a while after that, passing the various shop windows and remarking on how their reflections looked like a group of massively obese trolls with the amount of extra clothing each of them was wearing. After stocking up on some more prank equipment from Zonko's (wet start fireworks, more nose biting teacups, and a fanged Frisbee) they continued strolling the streets, despite the biting wind that was getting stronger.

On a pass of Madame Pudifoot's, James stopped and his jaw unhinged.

"Is that…?" he said, unable to finish his sentence. Kat, Remus, and Peter joined him in pressing their noses against the glass.

"Oh Merlin's beard!" Remus guffawed.

Lo and behold, Sirius was sitting at one of the little round tables looking extremely uncomfortable and bored at the same time accompanied by Khristine. She kept tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder and giggling while batting her eyelashes. Peter snickered.

"I don't believe it! Am I actually seeing what I think I'm seeing?" James' eyes were wide with shock and he started snickering uncontrollably. "Not going to Hogsmead my ass! Uh oh!" Khristine had started to lean in with the unmistakable intent of kissing Sirius when the door of the parlor was thrown open.

"You get your faces off of my window!" Madame Pudifoot waved her fist at them, distracting them long enough so that they didn't know what had happened to Sirius. "Now get going now, and quite staring at my customers!"

James and Peter didn't stop laughing the entire walk to The Three Broomsticks and even Remus chuckled. Kat had thought it was funny at first, but for some reason when she saw Khristine lean in to kiss Sirius her stomach had dropped and started burning with anger. She shook her head to rid herself of the feeling. There was no reason why she should be mad or jealous that Sirius was kissing Khristine, right?

They enjoyed their butter beers at The Three Broomsticks but then decided that it was time to head back up to the castle for the holiday farewell feast. They got to the common room before Sirius had come back from his date with Khristine and the boys lost no time in planning on how they were going to tease Sirius when he got back. Kat was still uncomfortable with the way she had felt when she saw Khristine lean in for a kiss so she just smiled and laughed at whatever the boys said. It was eventually decided that they were going to poke and prod Sirius until he came clean with every detail of his experience in Madame Pudifoot's.

The castle at Christmas time was the most beautiful thing Kat had ever seen. The Great Hall was bedecked with twelve giant Christmas trees, brought in by Hagrid and decorated by the teachers. Live golden fairies glittered on some of the trees while others held sparkling stars.

Sirius showed up halfway through the first course and the guys immediately started asking him questions.

"So, how was snogging the Russian beauty?"

"I can't believe she agreed to go out with you."

"What was it like?"

"You took her to Madame Pudifoot's? You are such an idiot…"

"Wow."

Kat remained silent and ate her food which had suddenly lost its taste.

"Can you believe they're gaining up on me like this?" Sirius asked her, sitting next to her. Kat could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. Damn. "If you shut up, I'll tell you stuff!"

"So did you actually kiss? Madame Pudifoot kicked us out before we saw…" asked James eyeing Sirius.

"Wait, you guys were watching…?"

"Pfft, of course we were, Sirius. You should know us well enough by now to know that we know everything that goes on around here. And we're incredibly nosey." Remus pointed out, munching on turkey. Once again, Kat noted that he was beginning to look pale. Maybe he had a cold…

Sirius shook his head. "Yes, we kissed." James punched the air and yelled "I knew it!" causing several people to turn their heads in their direction. Kat could see Khristine at the other end of the table eating with Lily and the rest of the girls, chatting animatedly about something while the other girls all squealed. Kat bet they were talking about the same thing. "But I didn't ask her, she asked me."

James and Kat both stared blankly at him for a second, then burst out laughing. Kat felt better, Sirius hadn't had the idea for the date, Khristine did. "Wait, a girl asked you out?" James gasped between laughs.

"Well I've been asking for ages, but she finally just asked me before I could ask her again." Sirius scowled. Kat could tell he did not appreciate being laughed at.

"Well, go on. Tell us how it happened!" Peter urged, his eyes shining with adoration.

As it turned out, Khristine had "cornered" Sirius after Potions the day before and asked him if he wanted to go to Hogsmead with her. Since she was the best looking girl in the year, and he'd been trying to get her to go out with him for ages, Sirius readily accepted. But he had no idea that Khristine would want to go to Madame Pudifoot's where allegedly they were stuck in all day.

"You can't believe how miserable that place is!" he said, as they all started eating dessert. "It reminds me of the Divination tower, with all these puffy little chairs and tea everywhere. Madame Pudifoot looked at me funny when I asked for a butter beer! A butter beer!"

He spent a long time describing to the boys what it was like to kiss the most beautiful girl in the year and they all stared dreamily into space before Kat punched James.

"Hey, I thought you had the hots for Lily!" she said.

James shook his head guiltily. "Of course I like Evans. But I can't help it. Rudevsky is smoking hot." Kat rolled her eyes.

"Well anyway, I don't know if she expects to hear from me over the holidays. I might be a bit busy with…other stuff." Sirius finished his tale as they all stood at the end of dinner to head for bed. They all weighed significantly heavier after the deliciously rich food.

James nodded. "I know what you mean, mate. We'll be so busy annoying Kat that you won't have time to write to your girlfriend!"

"Hey!" Kat crossed her arms and scowled at the two of them. Peter laughed and forgot to jump the trick step. He sank right through the board and Remus and Sirius had to hoist him out. Peeves chose that moment to swoop down on the lot of them, bellowing "Loony loopy Lupin, loony loopy Lupin! Puny, peeing Peter, puny peeing Peter!"

"Don't worry about it, Pete." Sirius muttered a few choice words under his breath and Peeves zoomed down the corridor into a suit of armor. They could hear him bellowing curses at them and rattling around inside, but he couldn't escape. The students in the hallway roared with laughter.

"You'll have to teach me that one some time!" James said, thumping Sirius on the back who grinned.

"Mandrake!" The Fat Lady swung open for them and they entered the common room, still laughing.

"I'll see you guys in the morning." Kat said, starting up the stairs to the girl's dormitory.

"Yeah, tomorrow we get to go home for Christmas!" James said, his eyes shining. "It'll be fun, just me, you, and Sirius!"

"You guys are lucky, you're all going to be together for Christmas," Peter said, scuffing the ground with his shoe.

"Don't worry, Pete. We'll send you all sorts of crazy letters to keep you busy and before you know it, we'll all be back." Kat said, smiling.

"Thanks." Peter smiled back.

"Well, I'm off to bed!" Kat turned to run up the stairs, but a hand caught her arm. It was Sirius.

"Don't listen to a word she says, Kat." He whispered before going upstairs himself. It took a while before Kat understood that he was talking about Khristine. Wondering why he had said that, Kat opened the Fifth Year Girl's dormitory to find the rest of her roommates already in their pajamas and laughing hysterically at something Khristine had just said.

"Oh, Kat! I vas vondering ven you were going to get 'ere." Khristine said, positively glowing. "I suppose you know?

"

"Yeah, I heard you and Sirius had a really great time." Kat said, forcing a smile.

Eileen cackled. "You didn't hear the real version!"

"What are you talking about?" Kat asked, pulling on her pajama bottoms.

"The version where Black panicked at being kissed." Arabella giggled and Lily joined in. Kat blinked. Sirius definitely left that part out.

"It vas very funny." Khristine said in her gorgeous Russian accent. "I 'ave never seen a boy act so strangely."

Kat snorted. Sirius had definitely left out panicking about kissing. Kat started to laugh before she felt bad. Was laughing like this with the girls being mean to Sirius? She wasn't really sure. She had never been in a situation like this, where there were two different versions of the same story.

"When you said he'd agreed to take you to Madame Pudifoot's I thought I was going to die laughing!" Eileen said, giggling again. Khristine smiled.

"Wait, so you did all of that as a joke?" Kat asked. She had pulled on her pajama shirt and was now climbing under her bedcovers.

Khristine nodded. "I vas sick of 'im alvays asking me. So I thought I'd have a little fun."

"Don't you think that's kinda, I don't know, mean?"

Lily snorted. "Honestly, Kat. I don't know how you can call that mean when you've seen the type of things those boys do to people." It was true. Kat had seen James hex Lily's friend, Snape just for the heck of it. And she'd seen Sirius do the same. For goodness sake, she'd been a part of the prank which had resulted in Professor Clark's attention being turned to Lily. She sighed.

"I guess you're right."

"Just don't tell them it was a joke, okay?" Arabella said, climbing under her own bedcovers.

"Of course I won't! The boys wouldn't believe me anyway. They never lie to each other, so Sirius' version of the story will always be the 'real' one." The other girls in the room giggled and crawled into their beds. They made Kat tell them Sirius' version of event and laughed some more at him. Kat felt a little bad for betraying Sirius' trust and finding herself believing Khristine's version of events more than his. Hadn't he told her not to believe anything Khristine told her? Kat rolled over in bed and fell asleep.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please review and favorite! I'll try to have the next chapter put up by the middle of the week.**

**On a writer's note...I hope I haven't made Kat too..pathetic/annoying at the same time. I mean, she lived in a basement for most of her life so of course she isn't really good at some stuff, but I did make her good at some stuff. I don't know, Kat has a very difficult combination of skills that makes it difficult to write about her! Goodness gracious, Kat!**


	9. Christmas With the Potters

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

"Mrrrrrg."

"C'mon, wake up!"

"Gerrof me!" There was a loud thunk as something heavy hit the floor. Kat sat up and groggily rubbed her eye, staring at the spot on her bed that had just held James.

"Hey! That was mean!" James stood up and pushed his glasses back onto his face. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blue polo and his black hair was more disheveled than usual.

"What time is it?" Kat pulled her bedcovers back up to her chin and rolled over, closing her eyes. Her room was filled with a faint gray light. "Is the sun even up yet?" James sat on her bed and poked her in the side.

"It's time for you to get out of bed! We have a visitor."

"I don't want any visitors." Kat's voice was muffled by the heavy blanket she was snuggly wrapped up in. The house was cold and Christmas was just a day away.

"It's Sirius!" James started to try and pull the covers off of her.

"Even more reason not to get out of bed!"

James poked her again. "He's here with all of his stuff. He finally left his parents'."

Kat sat up again. "Really?" James nodded. "Fine, I'll be up in a minute." James grinned hopped off the bed leaving Kat alone.

Gazing blearily around the room and sighed. A letter had arrived for James yesterday from Sirius responding to his birthday card. He had written something about a massive throw down between him and his parents regarding his sixteenth birthday. Kat could only assume that Sirius implemented some master plan for leaving his house. And now, here he was at James'.

Kat climbed out of bed and changed out of her pajamas into a pair of jeans and one of James' old sweatshirts. She looked out the window and saw that more snow had fallen in the night and her window was covered with frost. She craned her neck and looked up at the icicles growing from the roof and shivered, pulling on an extra pair of socks. Slipping slightly on the wood floors, she left her room. Following the sound of excited voices, Kat wandered down into the parlor where she found James seated on the piano bench talking to Sirius who was pacing the floor. They both stopped talking when they saw her enter.

Sirius was wearing a grey long-sleeved shirt, the exact color of his eyes, and dark jeans. He grinned broadly and swept Kat up into a gigantic hug, twirling her around on the spot then depositing her, rather dazed on the ground. "I'm never going back again!" He said happily, dancing around the Christmas tree.

Still rather bemused, Kat congratulated him. "So you'll be staying here then?"

"Yep! Once we talk to Mum and Dad first." James said, standing up and clapping Sirius on the shoulder. "Just in time for Christmas, mate!"

The three friends breakfasted late that morning on toast and eggs in the kitchen, talking excitedly about Sirius' departure from home. At around eight o'clock, Mrs. Potter came down into the kitchen and welcomed Sirius.

"Of course you can stay here. You can stay in James' room until we get the other guest bedroom set up for you." She smiled kindly.

"Thanks, Mrs. Potter. I won't stay long, just until I can save enough to buy my own place," said Sirius around a mouthful of toast.

"You can stay as long as you like. You'll always be welcome here."

Mr. Potter was informed of Sirius staying with the family and laughed loudly when they told him Sirius and James would be sharing a room. "We'll be cleaning up one hell of a mess."

James and Sirius sat down to play a game of Wizard's Chess in the parlor while Kat looked on from the piano bench. She liked the way the pieces moved by themselves. After losing spectacularly, Sirius challenged Kat to a game. It had taken a while over the summer for the pieces to trust her, but now they followed her orders without protest. After destroying a couple of recklessly brave pawns and a testy bishop, Kat achieved victory over Sirius.

"I forgot to warn you, mate. Kat's killer when it comes to chess." James was sitting at the piano, fingering the keys. He sighed. "It's been a while since I've played the piano."

"Well don't let us stop you." Kat said. "You've just been sitting here the whole time. Have a go." Sirius turned around to face James and nodded.

With a deep breath, James turned until he was facing the baby grand piano full on. "Now don't laugh, it's been a while and Mum made me memorize all of my music." He stretched his fingers and began to play.

Kat was entranced and she could tell by the way Sirius had relaxed next to her that he was entranced as well. James' fingers flowed over the keys, playing the most beautiful and sad song Kat had ever heard. The song made her think of love lost and tragedy. Her eyes brimmed up and she wiped them briskly. When James finished the song a few minutes later, she started clapping then stopped when James turned around and gave her a weird look.

"What was that piece called?" She asked breathlessly.

"Clair de Lune." James said, putting his arms in the air and stretching. "It's been ages since I've played it. I'm surprised I remembered it."

"It was beautiful." Kat sighed.

"Yeah, yeah it was nice." Sirius said nonchalantly. Kat shot him a glare and he puffed his cheeks out. Two minutes ago he had been just as enraptured in the music as she had been, but now he was playing it off like it was boring. "How about a snowball fight out in the yard?"

James grinned wickedly. "You're on."

"What about you, Kat? Are you coming or are you going to keep blubbering about how beautiful James' piano playing is?" Sirius asked the last part by raising his voice into a whinny interpretation of hers.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. I'll take you both down." Laughing, she chased the boys out of the room.

After three separate, furious snowball battles, they were all so tired they could barely walk. Sirius could make a mean snowball, but when James lobbed one at you it didn't stop stinging for a while. They trooped back into the house an hour or so before dinner, tracking snow in as they went. Kat cleaned it up quickly with a vanishing spell.

"Oh, man! You are so in trouble now! We aren't allowed to do magic outside of school you idiot!" James said, pointing from the now clean floor back to Kat who was stuffing her wand back in her waistband.

"You idiot. Don't you know how the Ministry actually tracks underage magic?" Kat asked raising an eyebrow. "I thought that you two, with all of your rule breaking and such, would know."

"What d'you mean?"

"The Ministry can't actually tell _who_ is performing the magic. They only know when magic is used, so in a magic household, it's up to the parents to keep track of their children. If you were in an all Muggle household, where no magic at all was supposed to be used and you cast a spell, they'd be alerted and all and take you away. In a Wizarding house, they can't tell the difference between your magic and your parents' magic."

James' eyes were the size of the moon. "How do you know that?"

Kat shrugged. "I picked it up while I was traveling this summer."

Sirius turned to James and grinned mischievously. "Excellent."

"Just think of all the time I've wasted over the years, cleaning my room by hand…" James shook his head and grinned back at Sirius. The two of them then turned and smiled at Kat.

"Oh, I am so going to regret telling you that aren't I?" They just grinned and traipsed upstairs to change into dry clothes for dinner.

The next morning Kat woke up to find that her dresser had been transfigured into a Christmas tree and all of her clothes were red and green except for a particularly horrid Christmas sweater Mrs. Potter had given her a few days earlier. Groaning and rolling her eyes, Kat got dressed in a pair of now red pants and the Christmas sweater.

Moving slowly down the stairs so she wouldn't slip in her socks, Kat could smell hot chocolate and she smiled. She was a little nervous about how everyone was going to like what she got them but she was looking forward to her first real Christmas. Everyone was already up and waiting for her in the parlor, seated around the tree. Mr. and Mrs. Potter were both still in bathrobes and slippers but Sirius and James were dressed in Christmas sweaters just like her.

"Happy Christmas!" They chorused as she shuffled into the room. James handed her a steaming cup of hot cocoa. The first sip scalded her mouth and she winced. The warmth and chocolate taste, with a hint of peppermint, were much appreciated.

"Now that you're up, we can start opening presents!" James said happily, throwing a parcel to his father and handing another to Sirius.

Kat was a little amazed at the amount of presents she received. The Potters had given her a whole new set of clothes, robes and Muggle attire, James had given her a pair of little pretty pearl earrings, and Remus and Peter had gotten her a combo pack of Drooble's chewing gum and Berty Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Even Lily had sent her something—a box of chocolate frogs with a note promising to spend more time with her next term. Kat was a little surprised and felt guilty because she hadn't gotten Lily anything. Sirius hadn't given her anything. After slipping the earrings James had given her on, she looked to see if the others had liked what she'd given them.

James was already happily flipping through the copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages _she had given him and Sirius was munching on the chocolate frogs she'd given him. Mr. Potter happily thanked her for the tie she'd gifted him (purple with silver and black diagonal stripes) and Mrs. Potter happily pulled her into a hug to thank her for the lavender bath salts and sweet-smelling lotion Kat had given her. Kat had also sent Peter some Fizzing Whizbees and Remus some peppermint toads.

After opening all of their presents, the Potters went up to change into their day clothes and Sirius, James, and Kat began examining each other's presents.

"Thanks for the earrings, James." Kat said happily, swatting Sirius' hand away from her box of Every Flavor Beans.

James smiled. "I thought you'd like them. It's nice to have a sister to dote on. I'll beat anyone up for you!"

"How about starting with Sirius? He keeps trying to steal my candy." Kat swatted at him again to keep him away from her sweets. He looked up innocently, his eyes huge like a puppy's.

"Hey!" he said reproachfully. Before he could say anything else, James tackled him and they started wrestling on the floor. Kat hurriedly grabbed up her presents before they were squashed and headed upstairs to put everything away.

She could still hear the boys wrestling when she got to her purple room and started hanging up her new clothes in the closet. She'd received a pretty blue dress with matching heels, a few pairs of new jeans and shorts, and a new set of black robes for school. She hung everything up next to her red and green clothes (courtesy of James and Sirius) Swelling with happiness, she stowed her candy in the drawer of her bedside table and stood in front of the Christmas tree that used to be her dresser.

She wasn't really the best at changing things back to their original form; that talent lay with James, the one she suspected had transfigured her dresser in the first place. She crossed her arms and stared hard at the tree and trying to figure out which spell would be best to use. She pulled her wand out just as Sirius pushed her door open. His hair was tousled from his wrestling with James and he was slightly out of breath. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Kat's outstretched wand.

"Were you planning on changing that back?" He asked doubtfully.

"Um, yeah. I was planning to."

He laughed. "You should let someone else do that. You'll just blow it up."

Kat put her wand back into her waist band and crossed her arms. "I resent that."

Sirius laughed again. His laugh was vaguely doglike and suited him well. Kat couldn't help but smile. He walked into the room and stopped standing just beside her, contemplating the tree. "How do you like your new green and red wardrobe?" he whispered.

Kat punched him in the arm. "So not cool."

"Ouch! Alright, I'll fix it." He mock pouted and walked over to her closet. Kat grew conscious that there was a pile of underwear and bras clearly visible in a pile in her closet that she had been planning on moving into her dresser—that was, until her dresser was turned into a Christmas tree. Turning scarlet, she grabbed Sirius' arm.

"No, that's okay. I'll do that later."

"Are you sure…?" His eyes had caught sight of the pile of underthings. A particularly lacey pair of underwear was visible on top of the pile. Surprisingly, he turned a bit pink and turned away. "I'll get James to fix your dresser for you. I might turn it into a wardrobe instead," he said gruffly before pulling out of Kat's grip and leaving the room.

Mortified, Kat closed the door behind him and locked it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. So what that Sirius had seen her pile of bras and underwear? They were clothes, just like her shirts and pants and robes. Why was it so embarrassing for a boy to see your underwear?

Mrs. Potter cooked up a spectacular Christmas dinner, complete with a flaming Christmas pudding at the end. They all pulled wizard's crackers at the table and by the end of the evening, the Potters were now owners to three yellow canaries and Kat had a rubber chicken that really squawked, along with a hideous purple and orange kilt.

James and Sirius were gleefully drinking hot cocoa with Mr. Potter, who had poured fire whiskey into their glasses while Mrs. Potter wasn't looking and the three of them were _singing God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs_ at the top of their lungs. James looked rather ridiculous with a flowered bonnet and luminous Christmas rosette pinned to his shirt and Sirius was petting a real live white rabbit he'd gotten from his cracker and wearing a Father Christmas hat. Dessert and cocoa went on well into the night and at half past twelve Mrs. Potter insisted that they all go to bed. Still singing, James linked arm and arm with Kat and Sirius (who was still holding his rabbit) and they skipped upstairs to Kat's bedroom.

"Oh, blimey! I'd forgotten I'd done that!" James said when he saw the Christmas tree standing tall in Kat's room, filling it with the fresh evergreen scent. "I c'n fix tha'!" He swayed slightly on the spot when he pulled his wand from his back pocket.

"Maybe you should do that in the morning?" Kat giggled, holding onto his arm so he wouldn't fall over. James was such a light weight.

"Man, your dad is the best, mate. Fire whiskey is awesome." Sirius said happily, sitting on the edge of Kat's bed, holding the rabbit. "What should we call him, Kat?"

Still holding James' arm so he wouldn't fall over, Kat chewed her lip thoughtfully. "How about Snowy?"

Sirius blinked at her, and then laughed loudly. "That is the most unoriginal name I've ever heard!"

Slightly hurt, Kat glared at him at thrust James into his arms. "Well, you asked my opinion so I gave you one. Now take him and get out of here." Sirius caught James before he squashed the bunny and hauled him out of the room. Kat closed the door with a snap behind him.

She tossed the purple and orange kilt into the closet and stuffed the rubber chicken into a pair of socks and stuffed them in a drawer so she wouldn't hear it squawk anymore. She had just finished pulling on her pajamas when she heard a quiet tap on her door. Thinking it was going to be a tipsy James again trying to re-transfigure her dresser she called through the door. "Go away, James! You can fix it later!"

The soft tapping continued and Kat stomped over to the door and wrenched it open. There, sitting in a brand new cage was the white rabbit Sirius had gotten at dinner. A red ribbon was tied in a bow around his neck and there was note attached to the cage. Kat walked out into the hall and stared down to the left where the door to James' bedroom stood closed then turned to look to the right towards the rest of the house. The hallway was empty. Squatting down, she picked the card off of the cage.

_Happy Christmas Kat. _

_~Sirius_

_P.S. Keep Mr. Snowy away from your lacey underwear! _

Kat stared at the card for a full minute then looked down at the white rabbit sitting in its cage in front of her door. Sirius Black was giving her a rabbit for Christmas…and had remembered her lacey underwear. Picking up the cage, she stared at Mr. Snowy before bringing him into her room and closing the door. She put his cage on her bedside table along with Sirius' card and sat on the edge of her bed staring at the two_. Maybe Sirius just didn't want a rabbit; I mean what type of teenage boy actually wants a white bunny?_ Kat thought to herself. Why else would he give her one?

The next day James woke up with a massive hangover and Mr. Potter was yelled at by Mrs. Potter. Kat didn't say anything about Mr. Snowy and neither did Sirius. James didn't even remember there was a rabbit the night before. After a cup of strong coffee, James turned the Christmas tree in Kat's room back into her dresser and turned her clothes the proper color again. He then curled up in a ball in his bed and wouldn't budge despite the efforts of Sirius. Finally, a chess challenge laid down by Kat coaxed James out of bed. For days, James would claim that the only reason he lost so badly was because he was hung over. Kat beat him so badly that the next game they played, James' chess pieces wouldn't listen to what he told them to do. In the end, James grumpily gave Kat the whole chess set for her own and said he'd order a new one the next day.

Kat spent the remainder of the day working on the homework assigned to them over the break. They had to write a three foot essay on the Triwizard Tournament and its origins for History of Magic, write another essay of antidotes for Potions, and describe the theory behind transfiguring furniture into large animals (chests into pigs for instance) on top of a ton of other homework. She had all her books spread out around her in the parlor while James was snoozing in an arm chair and Sirius was leaning up against the wall.

"We still have ages to do that," he said.

"Well the due date looks much closer from this side of Christmas." Kat pulled her History of Magic textbook closer to read the tiny print easier.

"Did you like your present?" Sirius asked quietly, moving closer so as not to wake James up.

Kat looked up from her book to find Sirius standing right above her, surveying her with his grey eyes. "Very much," she mumbled before turning back to her book, her cheeks tinged a slight pink. She thought she saw him smile.

"Good."

James snorted in his sleep and woke himself up. He yawned and stretched then pretended to jump comically when he saw Sirius and Kat there with him. His eyes fell on the books scattered around. "Oh, c'mon Kat! We have ages until we really have to do anything." He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Our O.W.L.'s arm coming up, James. I have to study. I don't want to get thrown out of Hogwarts after only a year!" Kat said desperately.

"Hey, hey," James said, sliding down to the floor beside her. "There's no way we'd let you fail. If we've been able to get Peter through the exams every year, we can get you through the exams. You're _way_ smarter than he is."

Kat smiled weakly. "But he's been in school for four years now. I've only been in school for a single term."

"And look at all you've learned and been able to do." James said proudly. "You're amazing."

Kat laughed. "You really think so?"

"We know so," said Sirius. He sat down on Kat's other side. "We'll make sure you make it through alright." Kat smiled at both of them and pulled them into a hug, surprising them as much as herself.

"Thanks, guys. It means a lot."

"Don't mention it," said James. "Just promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"You have to beat Snivellus at everything."

Kat smiled. "I'll try."

The new year came in a night of fireworks and food and soon Kat, James, and Sirius were all back at King's Cross ready to go back to school. Mrs. Potter gave them each a kiss on the cheek when they said good-bye. They met up with Remus on the platform and they boarded the Hogwarts Express together. Kat's trunk was loaded with the new clothes she'd gotten for Christmas and she was wearing the earrings James had given her. Mr. Snowy's cage was safely stowed above her seat and he was sitting in her lap, his little pink nose twitching. While the boys caught up with each other and talked about what they had done over break, Kat listened and scratched Mr. Snowy's head. As much fun as Christmas with the Potters had been, she was happy to be going back to school.


	10. Stress and Other Sicknesses

**This chapter has a lot of stuff in it, so I'll let you all read it and won't ramble much. Enjoy!**

* * *

The return to school after all of the fun of the holidays was a difficult transition. The teachers were loading more homework than ever onto the Fifth Years and the stress of it was beginning to show. Arabella had to be taken to the hospital wing after a Transfiguration lesson to be given a calming draft after she suffered a nervous breakdown when Professor McGonagall told her that her guinea fowl still looked like a guinea pig.

After weeks of badgering them, Remus had finally convinced the rest of the Marauders that they shouldn't be taking so many trips to Hogsmead using James' invisibility cloak. "You should all be studying and doing homework like Kat and I." Through Remus' kind and thorough tutoring, Kat had improved somewhat in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but her grade was still well below average.

"Oh, come on Moony! We still have ages until exams. Besides, I know all of my stuff." James whined.

"Don't call me Moony." A vein was pulsing on Remus' forehead and he looked ill again. Kat had noticed that this happened about once a month, sometimes twice. She worried about him.

"Why shouldn't we call you Moony? It fits!" Sirius was in the process of applying Spello tape to his set of brass scales that Peter had dropped that day in Potions.

"Yeah, it goes right along with your furry little problem!" James chided.

Remus paled and his eyes darted from Kat to the boys. "Just shut it, James," he snarled and grabbed his bag before stomping out of the common room.

Watching him go, Kat asked "What's wrong with him?"

"Oh, he's just on his time of the month." James plopped into the chair Remus had just vacated.

"'Time of the month'?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Maybe you'll figure it out soon enough." There was a loud crash and they both jumped and turned to see that Peter had accidently knocked the scales out of Sirius' lap.

"Pete! I'm gonna kill you!" Sirius lunged for Peter, but he was already gone up and out the portrait hole.

"Well he certainly moves fast." Kat chuckled.

Sirius shot her a glare. "Oh, forget this. _Repairo_." The jumble of brass that was once his scales reasserted itself to stand in one piece again. "We should start practicing again, James."

James waved his arms around in frustration. "I've never not been able to do something before! This is so annoying!"

"What is?" asked Kat curiously.

"Shut up and go back to studying," James growled before grabbing his bag as well and leaving the common room. Stunned, Kat watched him run his hands through his hair, looking as though he was going to rip it out before he disappeared through the portrait hole. She turned to Sirius.

He held up his hands. "Don't look at me. James doesn't like not being able to do something."

"Obviously," Kat muttered, turning back to her half-finished dream diary for Divination. Ten minutes later, she realized she was still staring at the same spot and her quill had left a huge ink blot on the parchment. "Damn," she muttered before vanishing it with a wave of her wand. She looked up and saw that Sirius was now sitting at the table with her working on some of his own homework. She blinked. Sirius and James _never_ did their homework. He saw her staring at him and smiled.

"Even I have to stoop low and do homework, Kat."

"What is it that James can't do?"

Sirius cursed under his breath. "I should've known you wouldn't leave that alone. It's not just James who can't do it. It's me and Pete as well."

"What are you guys trying to do?"

"What the Marauders do best—screw around and make trouble." He grinned at her then turned back to his own homework. Kat got the feeling that there was something more to what they were doing than just "screwing around" but she didn't want to push the point. If they wanted to tell her, they would.

Peter joined them a few minutes later for help on his Charms assignment and Kat was happy to oblige. They were working on silencing charms and after some pleading from Kat, Sirius grudgingly agreed to be their guinea pig.

"It's _silencio_, Peter. Not silencia," Kat said irritably after a half hour of practice. Neither James nor Remus had returned to the common room and Sirius had long turned back to his Arithmancy essay.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Peter was desperately waving his wand around. A first year sitting in front of the fireplace yelped as he sprouted flowers out of his ears from Peter's wand waving. He sprinted to the portrait hole and ran straight into James, who was just climbing through.

"Woah there, buddy. Take it easy." He caught site of the boy's flowers and burst out laughing. The kid pushed passed him and sprinted to the hospital wing. Kat and Sirius were laughing uproariously while Peter chuckled sheepishly.

"You're not going to believe it guys, but I think I finally figured it out and just in time too!" James slammed his bag down on top of Kat's homework, splattering ink all over them.

"Hey!" exclaimed Kat. James ignored her.

"Pete, Sirius, come with me I want to show you!" James raced up the stairs to the boys' dormitory closely followed by Sirius and Peter. Kat heard the door slam.

Left by herself, Kat pushed James' bag off of her homework and cleaned everything off. Then she stuffed her books into her own bag and decided to head off to the library before dinner to look up more information on the difference between Ulrich the Unfortunate and Domar the Doomed for History of Magic.

She chose a table near a window in the back of the library and went to search the shelves for information on Domar and Ulrich. After pulling several huge volumes off the shelf at random, Kat wandered back to her table to find it occupied. Severus Snape had shunted her bag onto the floor and was busy writing in what appeared to be his Potion's textbook.

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't see Kat standing in front of him, peering down at his handwriting. She had just made out the beginnings of what looked like a spell _Sectumsempra _when's Snape's head popped up. He glared furiously at her with a look of total disgust and shut his book with a snap.

"What are you looking at?" He snarled at her.

"You're sitting at my table," Kat said as nicely as she could. She'd never personally had the vendetta against Snape the way James and Sirius did. She'd never really said more than two words to him. To make a point, she dropped her books on the table and sat in the chair next to him. He stiffened as if he was expecting her to do something to him, but when she stayed focused on skimming through the book (_Depressing Deeds of 15__th__ Century Warlocks_) and completely ignored him, he relaxed and started scribbling in his book again.

The two worked in silence for another hour before Kat checked her watch and saw it was almost time for dinner. Snape was still engrossed in his Potions textbook and was still writing in the margins. She frowned but didn't say anything when she saw just how _much_ he was writing in it. Sure, she doodled in her textbooks sometimes, but she never wrote whole_ paragraphs_ like Snape was doing. She kept her mouth shut though and left the table to put her library books back. When she returned to the table to pick up her bag, Snape was gone.

At dinner, the boys were all so excited about something that they couldn't eat. Even Remus seemed giddy, although he was starting to look even paler and the scar on the side of his face stood out livid and red. When he rolled up his sleeves Kat noticed more marks that hadn't been there a few weeks before. She shook her head and turned back to watching the boys try to eat dinner and dance in their seats at the same time.

"Tonight will be better than anything else!" James was saying, spearing a piece of chicken with his knife while simultaneously doing a little jig.

"Why's that?" Kat asked, sniggering when James missed his mouth and dropped his chicken in his lap.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" He retorted, retrieving his chicken from his lap and eating it. Kat wrinkled her nose.

"Yes, I would like to know."

"Well, quite being so nosey and maybe we'll tell you one of these days."

"Fine," Kat said, slamming her fork down and getting up from the table. "Don't tell me. Just don't do anything stupid and get yourselves thrown out." She left and went to go sit with Lily and the girls at the other end of the table.

"Oh, hey Kat!" Lily beamed at her. "I was just telling the girls what Bertha Jorkins told me today during break."

"Oh? What's that?" Kat pretended to be interested as Lily launched into a story of a whirlwind romance between some girl in Ravenclaw with some boy in Slytherin, but really she was watching the Marauders as they all got up and left the Great Hall together. Lily finished her story and the girls fell silent as they started munching on dessert.

"You feel better Arabella?" Kat asked as the other girl gave a loud sniff. She was still rather pale and shaky and her eyes were red.

"Yeah, Madam Pomfrey fixed me up really quick but they wouldn't let me leave for a half hour to make sure I was really calm."

"That's good." Kat smiled at her. Sometimes she felt like she was going to have a mental breakdown from the sheer volume of work the teachers were loading on them in preparation for the O.W.L.'s. But usually when she started to think about it, James would show up and do something stupid to cheer her up he had a sort of sixth sense when it came to Kat's mental health state. Holding Mr. Snowy helped calm her down too.

"How was your Christmas, Kat? We didn't get a chance to ask you," Eileen asked as the girls all got up from the table. Khristine stayed behind to talk to a handsome Ravenclaw boy Kat had a feeling was Khristine's new interest after Sirius.

"It was pretty fun actually. Sirius showed up halfway through the holiday. He left his parents' house and he's living with us now." As soon as she finished saying this, Kat cursed under her breath. That was Sirius' secret to share with people, not her own. She prayed the girls wouldn't start spreading crazy rumors about it.

"Did he now?" Lily said surprised. "Well, I can't say I really blame him. His family is just horrid. That Bellatrix and Narcissa. And don't get me started on his brother!" Lily led the way up the stairs passed the portraits.

"I've never met Bellatrix or Narcissa," Kat said, jumping the trick stair. Peeves loved to torment students who forgot to jump it.

"You can count yourself lucky, then," said Arabella. "At least Narcissa is kinda quiet. Bellatrix is _awful_."

"Poor Sirius…" Kat murmured. They'd reached the portrait hole.

"Erm, does anyone remember the password?" Eileen asked uncertainly.

"No password, no entrance!" Chimed the Fat Lady.

"It's Banana Fritters," Lily said happily.

"Right you are, m'dear." The Fat Lady swung open and let them in.

The common room was still relatively empty since most of the Gryffendors were still at dinner. There was no sight of James, Sirius, Peter, or Remus and Kat was starting to get more suspicious. The girls sat down to play a game of Exploding Snap and the common room began filling up as more students finished dinner. Khristine showed up after about an hour and informed them happily that she was going on a date with the Ravenclaw boy at the next trip to Hogsmead, which was scheduled the day before Valentine's Day. She joined them in their game of Exploding Snap.

After some time, the common room began to empty again as people shuffled off to bed. Kat could see the full moon in the starry night sky through the window. She checked her watch—it was almost 12:30. Finally, Eileen and Lily said good-night and it was just Kat in the common room. Whatever the boys were up to, they were seriously taking a long time to do it. They had class the next morning with Professors Clark and Slughorn.

Kat was just about to doze off in the comfiest armchair when a blood chilling howl pierced the night. She started and ran to the window. Far, far below, out on the lawn she could see the silhouettes of three large black shapes running across the lawn. They slid out of her field of vision and she shuddered. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was well past three in the morning. Giving up on waiting for the boys, she climbed the stairs and fell into bed.

The next morning at breakfast Sirius, James, and Peter all looked exhausted but happy. Remus wasn't there. When she asked them what they did the night before, they didn't reply and instead asked her how her evening was. This was certainly a strange turn of events since usually the only one who cared to ask her how her day was wasn't even there.

"Where is Remus?"

"Oh, he got sick again last night. Just after dinner. We shipped him off to the hospital wing for some R and R," Sirius said after drinking some apple juice.

"He's going to miss class again!"

"Don't worry about him. He works like you so he should be all caught up within a day or so." James thumped her hard on the back.

"Well I'll bring him some work to do since I know you guys won't." Kat pushed back from the table and leaped to her feet, intent on going back to the Gryffendor common room to get Remus' things for him. Sirius popped up as well.

"You aren't going now, are you?"

"It's better if I go now. That way, he can have all of his things for the whole day to work on." Kat maneuvered around Sirius and sped out of the Great Hall.

"But you'll be late for Slughorn!" James had followed her out of the hall, followed by Peter and Sirius.

"Who cares?"

"'Who cares'? Are you hearing this, Prongs?" Sirius gazed dumbfounded at James. "She's talking about voluntarily skipping class!"

"Who are you talking to?" Kat stopped on one of the landings.

"Prongs! It's James' new nickname." Sirius slapped James on the back.

Kat raised an eyebrow. "'Prongs'? That's a little weird, y'know."

"Not as weird as you voluntarily skipping class!" James countered.

"Oh, whatever. Slughorn loves me. I'll just make some excuse when I show up. It won't take long for me to get Remus' stuff to him." As she spoke she started back up the stairs with the boys following her in her wake. A massive bell tolled, signaling the beginning of class, but she ignored it and kept climbing.

Five minutes later, they were climbing the stairs the other way, Kat carrying a stack of books for Remus and James holding Remus' bag. Striding into the hospital wing, Kat looked around to find Remus. All of the beds were empty except for one and there was a screen standing at the far end, close to Madam Pomfrey's office. The bed was occupied by a fourth year who had gotten smacked by the Whomping Willow while playing tag.

Frowning slightly, Kat asked, "Where is he?"

"Maybe he got released already," Peter said in a false cheery voice.

Kat ignored him. "Who's behind that curtain…?" She trotted over to the bed that was screened from view and could make out the outline of a boy through the curtain. "Remus?" She asked quietly. The figure jumped and Kat knew it was him. She pulled back the curtain and there was Remus.

But he didn't look sick at all. On the contrary, he looked like he'd been through a meat grinder or had gotten into a really intense fight. His left arm was bandaged heavily just above the elbow and Kat could see red seeping through the layers. A thick paste was plastered on the side of his face. He didn't have a shirt on because his chest was also heavily bandaged and Kat could see more paste and blood on the wrappings. Her eyes widened and she dropped the stack of books on the floor, causing a loud boom that made Remus flinch again.

"Remus! Oh my God, what_ happened_ to you?" Remus didn't answer and was busy trying to look anywhere but at her. Kat rounded on his friends. "What the hell happened? You all left together last night!"

"It's complicated," Peter mumbled.

"Bull _shit _it's complicated!" Kat was absolutely horrified by Remus' injuries and furious at the lot of them for not telling her what was going on. She turned back to Remus. "Has this been happening every time you get sick? Or when you go visit your mother?"

Remus stared hard at her but didn't answer. It looked like he was trying to do some quick thinking but didn't want to say what was really on his mind. "Fine, don't tell me. I came up here to be nice and give you stuff to do so you wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing, but I can see that was a waste of time. The whole lot of you are ridiculous and I don't know why I still hang out with you!" Fuming now, she shoved Sirius out of her way and stomped out of the hospital wing.

She was angry at all of them now. At Peter for saying that Remus had left already, at Remus for not saying anything, at James for being so stupid, and at Sirius for letting it all carry on. No wonder they didn't want her visiting Remus in the hospital wing! It was probably their fault that he was in that state in the first place!

All through the day, she ignored the whole group of them even though they all had class together. Remus obviously didn't show up, but James, Sirius, and Peter all tried to talk to her but she stalwartly ignored them. She sat by Lily or Khristine in all of her classes and ate with the girls at lunch and dinner. They tried asking her about what she had gotten into a fight with the boys about, but she just ignored them. When she got back to the common room, she headed straight for the girls' dormitory where she knew the boys couldn't come try and talk to her.

She gave a great huff and lay down on her bed. The whole day, hundreds of thoughts had been running through her head about what could have happened to Remus. Her heart grew heavier as each of her theories and explanations got nasty endings so she thrust them out of her mind and resolved to start writing Professor Clark's essay on man-killing dark creatures. Halfway through it, she began to write about werewolves.

_A lycanthrope has no choice but to transform into a werewolf once a month at the full moon._

Stupid Remus for not wanting to talk to her.

_If denied prey, a werewolf will bite and scratch himself._

Stupid James and Sirius for trying to stop her from visiting the hospital wing.

_Symptoms of lycanthropy include paleness and sickness leading up to the full moon and long recovery periods afterward._

Stupid Peter for-hang on. Kat stared down at her half completed essay and reread her last two sentences. '_If denied prey, a werewolf will bite and scratch himself.'_ Brain whirling at a million meters per second, Kat reread the rest of her essay that talked about lycanthropy. Once a month…scratch himself…sickness…she stared hard at her paper. Remus was ill at least once a month. Whenever he came back, he was covered in bruises and scratches. Was Remus a werewolf? Kat chewed her lip as she thought over it more.

It was the only thing that made sense, right? The scratches, the monthly illness, perhaps the reason why some of the teachers didn't like him…? If he was a werewolf, the teachers must know and so must Dumbledore otherwise things could get really out of hand. Obviously James, Sirius, and Peter knew whatever Remus' secret was. It would explain why they had tried calling him Moony.

"Is he a werewolf?" Kat said quietly, asking no one in particular—the dorm was still empty. As soon as she gave voice to the thought she knew it was true. She clapped a hand to her forehead. "Remus is a werewolf!" She stared motionlessly into space for a few minutes before making her mind up about what she was going to do.

A decision reached, she stuffed her things back into her bag and leaped off the bed. She raced through the common room, passed James and the others who were discussing something quietly by the window, and ran straight through a pair of second years' game of Gobstones. Without stopping to apologize, Kat raced through the portrait hole and down the moving staircases.

Peeves held her up at one point when he tried dropping water balloons on her head. She dodged most of them and continued on her way, slipping and sliding as she went. Reaching her destination, she thrust open the doors and marched to the end of the room where a single bed was screened off from view. She wrenched the screen away, startling the person behind it.

"Kat! What-? Why are you all wet?" Remus managed to sputter after getting over the initial shock of seeing Kat back in the hospital wing.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kat asked quietly.

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she repeated loudly. "Did you think that I would freak out an go ballistic?"

"Well—"

"Well you're right. I am freaking out and going ballistic. But not for the reason you were anticipating!" She had started dancing on the spot, she was so pent up with frustration.

"You…you know? Did they tell you?" Remus asked quietly.

"No, I figured it out for myself, thanks," Kat said coldly, ending her dance and crossing her arms. "Why didn't you tell me? I've been worried all this time!" She asked desperately.

"I didn't know how. The others figured it out on their own too."

"Did you think I wouldn't want to be friends with a werewolf?" Kat asked acidly.

Remus winced. "I didn't know how to tell you."

"So this is what you do every month? You run around the grounds at night scratching yourself?"

Remus paled. "Of course I don't run around the grounds. What if I attacked someone? No," he shook his head. "I get shut up in the Shrieking Shack." Just then, James, Sirius, and Peter all burst through the doors.

"The cat's out of the bag, guys," Remus said rather glumly.

"More like the wolf," Kat muttered, making Remus smile a little.

Kat fixed the boys with a glare. "We wanted to tell you—" James began.

"But they respected my privacy. For once," Remus finished for him.

"Anything else you'd like to tell me?"

Sirius grinned. "Well there is one other thing, that's a new development of sorts for us."

"I don't think there's enough room here, James!" Peter said warningly.

"Oh alright, we'll show her later." James shrugged. "Now will you come back to the common room so Remus can heal in peace?" Kat between Remus and James.

"Oh, alright," she conceded. She gave Remus a little glare before smiling at him and turning to leave. He caught her arm just as she turned away.

"Good job figuring it out on your own," he said quietly, as the other boys began leaving the room.

Kat smiled and teased, "I'm beginning to be quite clever, I think."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "You're as big headed as James."

Kat laughed and followed the other Marauders out of the hospital wing, her heart somewhat lighter. She'd figured out why Remus seemed so sickly all the time and they were going to show her whatever their other secret was later. The muddy waters were starting to clear up. Sort of.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!**


	11. Animagi and Hearts

Tuesday was an important day for Kat. She'd finally been able to successfully vanish her kittens in Transfiguration without leaving any whiskers behind. To celebrate, James surprised her in the common room with his arms full of fresh baked cauldron cakes and peach cobbler.

"Where in the world did you get all of this?" Kat asked as James dumped his load onto the table she was sitting at by the window. She had been labeling her drawing of a knarl and listing the ways you could distinguish it from a hedgehog. Mr. Snowy was sitting on her lap.

"Oh, that's another secret," he said teasingly. He snapped her Care of Magical Creatures textbook shut, folding her knarl drawing in half in the process. "Take a break from all this work and celebrate your Transfiguration stuff!"

"Hey! I've been working on that for ages!" Kat picked up her drawing and began to gingerly smooth out the crease that went straight between the creature's eyes. "And tell me where—" James silenced her by stuffing a cake into her mouth.

"Shh," he said soothingly. "Don't speak." James sat down across from Kat and ran his hands through his hair before picking up another cake. He happily began munching on it and stared around at the other students working while Kat worked furiously to unstick her mouth of the cauldron cake.

"Wheredijeewgetdisfoo?" She asked thickly.

"Oh, need something to wash it all down?" Kat glared at him, but she couldn't really be angry. The cauldron cake was delicious and she did need a distraction from her homework and her thoughts. Her brain was still running double time from discovering that Remus was a werewolf. She nodded and James waved his wand and a goblet of pumpkin juice appeared on the table. He raised it and Kat took a swig.

Wiping her mouth on her sleeve (James raised an eyebrow at this, Kat ignored that) she asked, "Where did you get that from? I thought we couldn't make food out of nothing. It's one of those laws of magic or something."

"Oh, yeah. Well I have an arrangement with the house elves in the kitchens. They're a bunch of helpful little chums of mine."

"The kitchens? That's where you got all of this?" James nodded happily. "You have to take me there!" Making friends with the house elves was exactly something she wanted to do. It was all thanks to a house elf that she had been able to escape from her parents at all. Good old Iggy had convinced her parents to let her out on the moor, and so she had run for it. She stood up so quickly that she almost upended the table and Mr. Snowy spilled out of her lap. Kat gave a little scream and picked him up, checking to see if he was okay. Mr. Snowy's nose continued to twitch as if nothing had happened.

"Hold on, hold on," James said, dragging her back down into her seat. "I'll take you there if you do something for me first." He was looking serious, a look that James almost never wore.

"Um, okay?"

"I need you to ask Evans what kind of flower she likes."

Kat stared at him in silence with a grin quickly spreading over her face. "You want me to ask _Lily_ Evans what her favorite flower is?"

"Yes, alright? Valentine's Day is on Friday and I want to ask her out again with some flowers." Kat giggled. "You got a problem with that?"

"Of course not, James," she scoffed. "I just don't think having flowers for her is going to change how she feels about you."

"Well you don't know about the magic of Valentine's Day then!"

Kat gave up on trying to stifle her giggles and burst into a raucous peal of laughter. "Oh, alright. I'll ask her what her favorite flower is. Now take me to see the house elves!"

"Not so fast, Missy."

"Missy?"

"Yes, not so fast, Missy! You have to come back with some real intell as to what her favorite flower is, yeah? Then I'll take you to the kitchens."

Kat started laughing again. "Okay, okay. I'll get your 'intell'."

James grinned and picked up another cauldron cake. "Fantastic."

The pair continued to eat their way through the mound of cauldron cakes. Remus showed up in time to help them eat their way through the peach cobbler, which was excellent.

"I haven't been to see the elves in a while," Remus said after eating his share of the cobbler. "Maybe I'll pop in to see them before dinner tonight. Want to come, Kat?"

James gave a large belch and said, "Woah, woah Moony! I have a diabolical plan here that involves Kat getting me some proper recon and as a reward, I'm taking her to meet the house elves!"

Remus gave a snort which he quickly turned into a cough. "Did he ask you to ask Lily some personal question just in time for Valentine's Day, Kat?" She nodded since her mouth was still full of cobbler. Her knarl drawing lay forgotten on top of her textbooks under the table. "Well, I guess since he already went through me, Peter, and Sirius, he had to ask someone else to do it for him this year."

"What d'you mean?" Kat asked, swallowing the last of the peach cobbler.

"Every year since our second year, James has tried asking Lily out on Valentine's Day. Mind you, he asks her out at every available moment through the year, but always makes a special effort on Valentine's Day. It's like he thinks there's something 'magical' about Valentine's Day, and girls will fall in love with a bloke just because he asked her out."

"Hey, I'm right here!" Said James, waving his hands in the air to make a point. Remus ignored him.

"Anyway, last year he asked Peter to get her favorite color, the year before Sirius had to figure out her favorite type of cookie, and the year before that I had to figure out what her favorite candy was. So we all know that she likes purple, snicker doodle cookies (which James asked the house elves to bake for him), and peppermint toads and Fizzing Whizbees. I guess all that's left to figure out so James can put together the most impressive Valentine's Day display is what her favorite flower is."

Kat felt her face split into a wide grin. "Imagine being accosted with a bouquet of flowers, cookies, candy, and your favorite color all at once. What girl in her right mind could refuse?"

"Oh, are we talking about James and Evans again?" Sirius had just appeared through the portrait hole and was stuffing something red into his bag. He saw Kat looking and hastily stuffed it deeper into his bag. "Hey Mr. Snowy! Who's he recruited this time?" Kat raised her hand and Sirius gave Mr. Snowy a scratch behind the ears. "What do you have to figure out?"

"Her favorite flower."

"Seriously, mate?" James shrugged.

"Got anyone on your mind for Valentine's Day then, Sirius?" James asked innocently, ignoring the amused looks his friends were giving him.

Sirius gave a big shrug. "Not really. What about you, Moony?"

"Of course not," Remus said bitterly. "What girl in her right mind would—"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. You're fantastic! You're smart, nice, have a really weird sense of humor, honestly not that bad lo—" Kat stopped this tangent when she saw the boys staring at her. Remus' mouth was slightly open and James was grinning. Sirius looked irritated. "Wait, a minute! You all never showed me that other secret thing you've been keeping from me!" She said, changing the subject before things got awkward. She liked Remus very much and didn't like to see him so bitter, but she also didn't want him getting the wrong idea. She started stroking Mr. Snowy.

Her statement worked. Immediately, the boys all showed identical grins. "It's something we've been working on for ages," said Sirius, looking much happier now that the conversation was being steered in the opposite direction.

"It's a pretty amazing piece of magic," said Remus. "I've never heard of anyone this young who's been able to do it."

"Will you stop yapping and show me?"

"We can't do it here. C'mon." James jumped up from the table and grabbed Kat's hand, leading her up the stairs toward the boys' dormitory.

"Hold on, lemme put Mr. Snowy away!" Kat wiggled out of his grip and sprinted up to her dormitory to put the rabbit back in his cage. "I'll be back again soon!" She cooed before racing down her staircase and up the boys'.

Their dormitory was exactly like hers, except it was about twenty times messier. Khristine and Lily like to keep things neat and orderly, but the only part of this dormitory that was neat was a single bed on the far side of the room that Kat guessed was Remus' and he'd only made his bed. Dirty clothes were thrown willy-nilly about the circular room and the bed sheets were thrown everywhere. Feathers, the remnants of a pillow fight, littered the floor and spare pieces of parchment were scattered underfoot.

"Er, welcome to our humble abode!" James said unceremoniously. "_Windgardium leviosa!" _The beds, trunks, and dressers all floated weightlessly in the air. James gave a little flick and they all piled themselves neatly against the wall, leaving a large, empty space for the four of them to stand in. "We need a bit of room for me."

"What d'you mean?"

"You'll see!"

"Kat, come stand over here by me," Remus said. He was standing in front of the pile of furniture. Kat obediently went to stand next to him and stood facing Sirius and James, positively trembling with curiosity.

"I'll go first, shall I?" Sirius said. He screwed his face up in concentration, and suddenly there was black fur growing out of his skin. He was shrinking in height and his face was elongating and his fingers were curling in, and then suddenly, where Sirius had been standing a moment before, was a giant black, bearlike dog.

Kat stared wide eyed at the huge dog and then said, "Oh my God, you're an Animagus!" Sirius gave a loud bark and bounded over to where she was standing, dumbstruck. As a dog, Sirius reached in height to about her waist (grant it, she wasn't _that_ tall, but still). He allowed her to pat him on the head and scratch him behind the ears before turning back into a human.

"Merlin, Sirius! That's amazing! You're a dog?" Kat said.

"I figured it fit. My name is Sirius…and you know it's the dog star…so I guess it makes sense that I turn into a dog."

"This is amazing." Kat gave Sirius a hard poke in the side, to ensure that he was really standing there and wasn't going to turn back into an animal.

"Hey, I haven't done my thing yet!" James said and he too screwed his face up in concentration. Unlike Sirius, James began to grow taller and his arms and legs longer. He bent over at the waist and huge branchlike things began to sprout out of his head. Finally, a beautiful, magnificent stag stood in the middle of the Fifth Year boys' dormitory. The tips of his antlers just brushed the ceiling and one of his legs looked like it was as tall as Kat.

"Wow," she breathed softly. "You guys are absolutely amazing."

The stag pawed the floor and his hoof made a loud clicking noise that made them all flinch. His nickname "Prongs" made a lot more sense now. The stag began to shrink, and once more James Potter was standing in the middle of the floor. He grinned cheekily at the look on Kat's face.

"What made you decide to do this?" She asked, giving James a hard poke in the side too.

"Remus did," answered Sirius simply.

"Werewolves are only a danger to humans, not animals," Remus explained while simultaneously returning the furniture to its proper location. "Since James and Sirius can transform into such big creatures, they help keep me in check."

"Can…can Peter do this to?" Kat asked quietly, quite sure she knew the answer already.

"Yes, actually," James chuckled at the surprised look on her face. "It's good Petey turns into something so small, or we'd have issues getting to the Whomping Willow."

"Why do you need to get to the Whomping Willow?" Kat asked, completely lost.

"Every month at the full moon, I go to the Shrieking Shack to transform. There's a passage between the school and the Shack, and the Whomping Willow is planted right over the entrance so no one can come across me when I'm transformed. There's a knot on the tree that you have to press to make it safe to get to the passage. Pete transforms into a rat to hit that knot so the rest of us can get through," explained Remus.

"And what do you do when you're all animals?"

"We explore," was all Sirius said.

It took a while for it all to sink in, but then Kat couldn't stop grinning. Her friends, her fantastic friends, could turn into animals at will to help Remus through his transformation. Magic like this was way beyond their year, and James, Sirius, and Peter had all managed to do it. She was beyond impressed.

On Thursday, Kat finally remembered that she was supposed to ask Lily about her favorite type of flower, so she cornered her after their Herbology lesson.

"Hey, Lily! Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Lily looked up from searching her bag for something and smiled, dazzling Kat slightly with how pretty she was. It was just recently that Lily was really beginning to shine, and Kat couldn't help but feel a little jealous. She was still short, skinny and brunette, with boring green eyes, but Lily was tall, curvy, had beautiful auburn hair that hung down her back and the most wonderful green eyes Kat had ever seen. Lily smiled at her and said, "Sure!"

"This might seem kind of random," Kat began as they navigated one of the vegetable patches behind Greenhouse two on their way up to the school for dinner, "but what's your favorite type of flower?"

"Tulips," Lily answered automatically. But before Kat could say anything else, Lily stopped walking and fixed her with a calculating stare. "Potter put you up to this, didn't he?" She said without preamble.

"Um—"

"That arrogant little git! He can't even ask me what my favorite flower is, or what my favorite color is, by himself? He has to get his minions to do it for him I guess."

"Hey, I'm not one of James' minions!" Kat said hotly.

"Yeah, but you're still doing what he says. He thinks he's so fantastic, with his good grades and Quidditch. But he's really just an—" Lily ranted on this way for a while and Kat could tell that she had gone on autopilot with her rant. Lily had begun walking faster and faster up to the castle and Kat nonchalantly started slowing down, she wasn't even sure if Lily noticed. By the time Lily reached the castle doors, Kat was still far out on the lawn and thinking that James was seriously deluded if he ever thought Lily Evans would agree to go out with him.

Kat let James know at dinner that Lily's favorite flowers were in fact tulips, and not lilies which was something that the whole table found interesting.

"I wouldn't advise you to ask her, though!" Kat warned. Peter, Sirius, and Remus all snorted. Apparently, they had had this discussion before. James, however, was not listening and was busy wracking his brain for a spell that would give him tulips.

The next morning, the whole school was extra loud and buzzing with the excitement of Valentine's Day. By break, new couples were already walking through the halls hand in hand and by the afternoon, it seemed like nearly the whole school had dates for the Hogsmead trip the next day, and still James hadn't asked Lily.

At dinner, James seemed really quiet and didn't listen to any of the boys' teasing. Sirius, like always had received about a million Valentine's from various girls across the school, but had ignored them all and dumped the ones that didn't have candy into the nearest rubbish bin he could find. The ones that did have candy he kept and they feasted on them throughout the day.

Halfway through dessert, James stood up abruptly and left the hall. Thinking it would be best if she followed him just to make sure he didn't do anything stupid or dangerous, Kat stood up to leave the table too. James wasn't in the Entrance Hall, which was lucky because Peeves was stringing together a daisy chain from rotting flowers (Kat suspected he would be draping them on people when he was finished). She started making her way up to Gryffendor Tower and after taking a shortcut behind a tapestry she was in the corridor leading up to the tower.

Only, the corridor was completely different. From every available crevice, purple ribbons hung from the ceiling and draped the walls. Tulips in every color were positioned in vases balanced on top of platters of cookies and boxes of peppermint toads and Fizzing Whizbees.

"James?" Kat called timidly, not really believing what she saw. James popped up from behind one of the stacks of cookies and candy and frowned at her.

"What are you doing here? Evans should be coming up soon!"

"James, do you honestly think this is a good idea? Ambushing someone like this after dinner…?" James wasn't listening. He was making slight adjustments to his display. He stopped when he heard the sound of benches being pushed backward all at once, announcing the end of the feast.

"Hide! She'll be here soon!" Not knowing what else to do, Kat ducked behind a suit of armor and tried not to think about what Lily would do to James. Right on cue, Lily, along with her entourage of Eileen, Khristine, and Arabella, came around the corner and stopped dead when she saw the decorations. She colored just as James leapt from behind the largest stack of sweets.

"Come on, Evans! If you go out with me this time, you can have all of this stuff! Even the tulips!" Kat could have slapped him. Lily looked like she really wanted to slap him. Instead, she went on another rant, yelling at James, in front of a crowd that was growing larger as more people finished dinner, about how pig headed and arrogant he was. And Lily Evans, who was best in the year in Charms (after Kat now), took out her wand, gave it a little wave, and there was a puff of smoke where James had just been standing. When it cleared, the crowd of students howled with laughter—Lily had turned James into a duck.

Kat clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud and ran out into the corridor and picked duck-James up. Lily gave a loud sniff and vanished the purple decorations and the sweets and stomped off into the Gryffendor common room. Kat, meanwhile raced down the corridor, still trying not to laugh, and slipped into the passage behind a tapestry…and found herself face to face with Sirius.

Their noses were literally almost touching, they were so close. Sirius looked momentarily surprised by Kat's sudden appearance, but he quickly recovered. They were so close, Kat could tell what the precise shade of gray Sirius' eyes were. She gave a little squeak and jumped back, turning at the same time and somehow managed to crack her head against the wall.

"Woah, hey, you okay?" Sirius asked. He stretched his arm out and gently touched the back of her head where she had hit it. He took a step closer.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kat mumbled and flushed. She was still holding duck-James in her hands.

"Is that a duck?" Sirius asked quietly. Kat nodded. "You're so weird," he said, taking a half step closer and still holding her head. He had to crane his neck a little to actually see her, he was so much taller than her. He bent closer and got a strange look in his eye. Kat stopped breathing and froze. She could feel herself turning scarlet as Sirius pulled her closer, his other hand on her back now. The duck-James was all but forgotten as Kat's heart starting racing faster and Sirius bent down, his mouth getting closer, his eyes closing. Kat was just about to let him kiss her when there was a loud pop and a puff of smoke.

James materialized out of the smoke and Kat jumped back, cracking her head on the wall again. James blinked a few times and stretched, looking between Kat, who was blushing profusely and Sirius who was looking as though he would like to hit him.

"What are we doing in this passage?" James asked brightly. "Wait, don't answer. Did Lily say yes?"

"Of course not," Sirius said briskly. "She turned you into a duck."

"Oh," James said, dejectedly. "Well, I guess we'd better get to the dormitory before she turns me into something else." He left the passage and after a backwards glance, Sirius followed him.

Kat was left rubbing her head where she had cracked it twice with the feeling of Sirius' hand on her back still fresh in her mind. She hadn't really known until that moment that she felt anything at all besides friendship towards Sirius. In fact, until a few months ago, she was positive that he didn't even like her as a friend. And now he was trying to kiss her in hidden, secret passageways? She stayed leaning against the wall for a few more minutes to let her heart rate return to normal. Then, mastering herself, but with her mind still swirling and her heart still fluttering a little, she left the passage and entered the Gryffendor common room, determined to think about what had just happened tomorrow.

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**Thanks for reading!**


	12. Time to Dual!

**Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay but a few days ago we had a crazy thunderstorm here that knocked everything out. I haven't had Internet for a few days.**

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The next fortnight passed in a sort of awkward blur, for Kat at least. Sirius showed no sign of wanting to pick up where they left off. The Valentine's Day Incident, as Kat called it to herself, had left her really confused. At first she was irritated, but now she was grateful that James had reverted from his duck form when he did. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to be kissing Sirius Black in some secret passageway. Who knew where that would lead…Sirius was acting as nonchalant as normal, as if nothing more than a simple hello had passed between them, and James didn't remember anything that had happened when he had been a duck. After days of panicking slightly every time she saw Sirius or James (in case James remembered something), Kat was grateful since it allowed her to return to her normal routine.

The warm weather returned and soon the grounds were full of bird song and the smell of fresh, green grass. During breakfast, they would bring food out by the lake and sit under a tree, munching on toast and biscuits. Then they would trudge up to the castle for lessons, and return to the lake at break and during lunch.

The first week of March rolled by without James remembering that he was supposed to bring Kat down to the kitchens to meet the house elves. He was too busy being grumpy and moody about Lily's latest rejection.

In an effort to cheer him up, Sirius threw him in the lake one day after dinner. While Kat and Peter rolled on the ground laughing (Remus had his nose buried resolutely in his book), James hit Sirius with a trip jinx and pulled him into the lake. The two wrestled around for a bit before the giant squid heaved them bodily from the water before settling down again to bask in the warm shallows.

"The look on your face!" Peter laughed, pointing at James whose wet hair was plastered to his forehead. Sirius gave his customary barklike laugh and shook his head, drenching them all with lake water.

"Hey! Watch it," snapped Remus. He was holding his book (_1,000 Magical Herbs and Fungi)_ out at arms length, watching as it dripped heavily.

"Sorry, Moony!" Remus scowled and pulled his wand out of his shabby robes to perform a hot air charm and dry the book.

"Well are you going to leave us like this?" James asked, raising his arms over his head. Water was dripping down the side of his face and his glasses were fogging up. Sirius was busy rubbing his head, spraying water all over the place and Kat and Peter had long since gotten out of the line of fire. Remus gave Sirius and James an appraising look, as if contemplating what they would do if he didn't dry them off too, and grudgingly raised his wand to dry them.

James squirmed around and giggled, "That tickles!" Properly dry again, he sat down on the grass and ran a hand through his hair, making it look as if he had just stepped off a broom. "Come and sit down, Padfoot," James said, gesturing to Sirius to sit down. They had all decided on nicknames for themselves—James was Prongs, Sirius was Padfoot, Peter Wormtail (he turned into a rat), and Remus was Moony. Kat, thankfully, didn't have a nickname.

Padfoot, however was not paying attention to a single thing Prongs was saying. His whole body had gone stiff and his chin was lifted up, as if he had scented a prey. His lips were pulled back in a savage grin and his hand plunged into his robes. Kat whirled around, and coming across the lawn toward them was Snape with his nose in a book, his greasy hair shinning in the sun, and just behind him were Aiden and Regulus, along with their gang of Slytherins.

Kat leaped to her feet and so did James, both of them sticking their hands into their robes and pulling out their wands. Peter gave a sort of squeak, popped up and hid behind James. Remus grimly put his book away.

"Leave them be, Sirius," he warned. Snape was so busy with his book that he didn't notice he was about to walk right into them. He gave a start when he heard Remus speak and snapped his book shut. A nasty look crossed his face.

"How you doin', Snivellus?" Sirius sneered.

"Well enough until you showed up, Black," snapped Snape.

"_Incarcerous!_" James pointed his wand at Snape and ropes sprang out of nowhere, winding tightly around his body. Kat winced as Snape fell to the ground with a thump.

"Hey! He wasn't—"

"Shut up," James said, cutting her off. He was looking at Snape with enough loathing to kill. "I didn't want him helping out his little friends." Regulus and Aiden had arrived with their posse and encircled them. All total there were only six of them, all much younger than Kat and the Marauders, but they all knew jinxes and hexes that no one so young should know.

Kat could hear Snape cursing under his breath as he struggled to pull his wand from his pocket. Everyone else was silent.

"Long time, no see," Aiden drawled. "Did you think that we were going to leave you be?"

"Oh come off it! You're all like seven. Do you really want to fight a bunch of Fifth Years?" Sirius was eyeing his brother with intense dislike.

"I think you'll find we've grown a bit more than that," said Regulus. His cronies started laughing.

"You're so quiet over there, sister. What's the matter? Cat got you tongue?" Aiden mocked.

Kat couldn't think of anything witty to say, so instead she just told him to shut his pie hole.

"Oh, that was original," he chuckled. "Mother will be so happy with what I'm about to do." His pulled his wand out in a flourish, but before he could do anything, James shouted "_Protego!_" and Aiden's spell rebounded onto himself.

Aiden blew backwards a few feet and when he got up he had a heavy nose bleed. James' face was flushed and his teeth were bared savagely. "Don't you touch her."

"Oh, a protector."

"James, really. You don't have to do any—" Kat began but James cut her off.

"Shut up, Kat. This little sleaze ball needs someone to teach him a lesson." And the dual began.

James was best in the school in Transfiguration, but that didn't mean that he didn't know how to defend himself or attack. His wand flashed so quickly that Kat had difficulty keeping up with what spells he was casting. Aiden was holding his own, despite being significantly younger. Coming from a dark family he knew all sorts of spells he shouldn't and some of them, James had difficulty blocking. A great circle of students from all the houses formed around the dueling pair, ducking and dodging any spells that missed.

"James, stop!" Remus shouted above the noise of the crowd.

"James, stop!" Kat shouted too, but James couldn't hear her. He was too busy fighting Aiden. She knew that James thought he could take Aiden, but James had no idea the kind of house Aiden had been raised in. Since he was old enough to do actual magic, Aiden had been schooled in the Dark Arts and had excelled. Despite being their junior, he was significant opponent. Kat had thought she hated him before now, now she positively loathed him.

"He'll be fine, Kat." Sirius was standing next to her, watching the dual through an intense gaze.

Kat seized the front of his robes. "You have to stop him, Sirius! You have no idea what Aiden knows."

Sirius pried her hands loose from the front of his robes and held them tight. "I know exactly what Aiden is like, and trust me. James can take him." Right on cue, there was an exceptionally loud bang and a cheer from the Gryffendors. "See?" He patted her hand and shoved his way through the crowd to where James was doing a victory lap and Aiden was lying on the ground, unconscious.

"Aw yeah! Take that punk!" James was saying, holding his fist high in the air as if he had just won a Quidditch game. He had a cut just above his left eye and another on his wand hand. Blood was dripping down the side of his face but he ignored it and kept on celebrating. Aiden was being pulled away by his friends, and Snape was still tied up with the _incarcerous _charm. "See that, Snivellus?" James said savagely, "I'll do that to you if you don't get out of my sight." James reversed the spell and Snape crawled away through the crowd which was beginning to disperse.

"Let's get out of here before a teacher shows up, mate," Sirius began pulling James up to the school through the thinning crowd. People kept patting James on the back and thanking him for taking care of the Slytherin git.

"James Potter!" Kat had caught up with the two of them and she was extremely cross.

"Kitty!" James said and slid an arm around her shoulder and plastered a big kiss on her cheek. "How's my sister doing?"

Kat slapped him and pulled away. "James, you prat! Don't call me that _and what the hell did you think you were doing_?"

"Defending your honor," he said, posing gallantly like a knight.

Kat stared at him in exasperation. "Defending my honor?" she repeated. "James, you idiot, Aiden will be furious that you've embarrassed him in public and he'll come back with something nasty!"

"Oh, calm down. I whooped him so bad that he won't be able to think straight for a week."

"That's the problem! Did he hit you with a Confundus Charm or something? He'll be back, with something big." James had just noticed the blood dripping down his face and he wiped some away, staring unhappily at it.

"The little snot rag made me bleed!" He muttered to himself, wiping the rest of the blood away on his sleeve.

"Oh whatever, don't listen to me then. C'mon Sirius, let's take him to the hospital wing to make sure he hasn't been hit too hard on his head." They seized him under the armpits and dragged him away to the hospital with him protesting the entire way that he was fine.

Madame Pomfrey was not at all pleased when they brought him in. "Dueling! Do you have a death wish, Potter?" She fixed him up well enough but told him sternly not to do anything too stupid or strenuous or his head wound would open again.

Professor McGonagall found them on the staircases on their way up to the dormitory.

"James Potter, get down here this instant!" she barked. Her nostrils were flared and she looked absolutely furious. James looked from Sirius to Kat and sighed, before making his way down to the staircase where McGonagall stood. Even though James was taller than she was, she still seemed to tower over him. James looked resolutely at her as she yelled at him. Even from their distance, Sirius and Kat could hear every word she said to him.

"Attacking another student…"

"I hope he doesn't get anything too bad," Kat muttered.

"Oh, don't worry. Haven't you noticed, McGonagall loves him. He's best in the class." Sirius shrugged. "He'll probably just get lines or something. C'mon, she's nowhere near done yet." He started climbing the stairs again and Kat, after a look over her shoulder at James (who was now evidently defending what he had done) she followed.

They walked in silence for a bit, Kat thinking over the Valentine's Day Incident (incidentally the last time they had been alone together, despite the fact that James had been a duck) and Sirius his normal quiet, nonchalant self.

To ease what she thought was an awkward silence Kat began to hum under her breath. It was a tune that she had made up through all those years of sitting in a dank, dark basement.

"What is that song? It's so sad," Sirius said, stopping.

Kat blinked and stopped walking as well. She'd gone in a sort of daze of remembrance when she had started humming. She shook her head to clear her mind of it. "It's just a song that I made up while I was back home."

"Was it terrible?" Sirius asked quietly, not quite looking at her.

"I try to avoid talking about it, actually. So I don't have to remember."

"Right. Sorry." He started walking again.

Kat stayed where she was. "It was horrible. I hardly ever saw the sun…" She could feel tears starting to burn her eyes and she swallowed, trying to hold them back. "Sometimes, I think that this is all just a dream and I'll wake up and still be there…"

Sirius stopped walking and turned to face her with a look of pity and understanding. "I was imprisoned in my house, too. But at least I could leave to come to school."

Kat blinked back her tears and smiled cheerfully up at him. He really was so much taller than she… "But I know that this isn't all a dream, and I finally have friends and freedom and everything I ever wanted."

"Everything you ever wanted?" Sirius asked, coming closer.

Having a sort of flashback and getting nervous again, Kat laughed and grabbed his arm. "Yup, everything. Now let's get back to the common room and start on our star charts for Astronomy."

Sirius groaned. "Homework? After we just saw James wallop someone?"

"Yes, homework." She linked her arm in his and hauled him off the Gryffendor common room.

Remus and Peter were already there working on their star charts when they arrived. Sirius hastily unlinked his arm from Kat and sat with a huff in the chair between them. Kat took the chair next to Peter and opened her bag to pull out new parchment to begin.

"What a day, huh?" Sirius sighed, propping his feet up on the table, covering Pete's work. Peter shoved Sirius and reclaimed his paper.

"You might want to start working on this, Sirius," Remus said, giving him a piece of parchment. "It takes a while."

"Yeah, well I don't need to do any homework." He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back, sighing.

James crawled in through the portrait hole with a sour look on his face. "I've got to do lines! 'I will not attack younger students'." He thought over this sentence for a moment and then grinned. "Do you think McGonagall did that on purpose? 'I will not attack _younger_ students'."

"Don't even think about it, James," Remus warned. James shrugged and took a seat.

The group spent the remainder of the evening attempting to complete their star charts. However, eventually Kat and James were playing Wizarding Chess, Sirius had his head on the table and was snoring loudly, Peter was playing Exploding Snap, and only Remus was actually working (he'd finished the star chart and had moved on to Defense Against the Dark Arts homework).

"Ha, yes! CHECK MATE!" Kat yelled loudly as her bishop overtook James' king. Sirius gave a yelp and sat upright, his star chart stuck to his face.

"Blimey, look at the time!" James checked his watch. "It's half past one!"

"You still have to take me to the kitchens!" Kat said, clearing the chess board.

"Maybe in the morning."

"It_ is_ morning. Besides, I could go for a brownie or something chocolate."

"Oh, alright then." For all James tried to sound exasperated, a grin was spreading over his face. "Time to get out the cloak." He pulled his silvery invisibility cloak out of his bag.

"Are you sure you want to break even more rules today?" Remus asked as Peter and Sirius (after unsticking his homework) jumped up to join James and Kat under the Invisibility Cloak

"Oh, come on Moony! It's a new day!" Remus sighed, but joined them under the cloak.

"Let's go!" James whispered.

It was hot and stuffy under the cloak with the five of them, and Kat preferred her first experience with it to this one. She was uncomfortably stuffed between Peter and Sirius and winced frequently when Peter stepped on her foot. James was leading in front with Remus next to him. He led them down the stairs to the brightly lit corridor the Hufflepuffs always came up from and stopped when they were in front of a massive painting of a bowl of fruit. After a quick look around to see if anyone was near, James ducked out from under the cloak and tickled the pear in the bowl of fruit. It giggled and turned into a large handle, which James pulled on. The whole painting swung outward and they stepped through.

The kitchens were large and spacious and had four long tables positioned precisely like the four house tables above in the Great Hall. Kat had expected it to be deserted due to the fact that it was almost two in the morning, but as soon as they stepped in and removed the cloak a house elf appeared.

"Masters James, Sirius, Peter and Remus!" The elf squeaked. From its high-pitched voice, Kat could tell it was female. "How is you doings?"

"Just peachy keen, Gigi!" James answered happily.

"Oh, you has a missus with you tonight! Hello, miss. My name is Gigi, how may I help you?" The elf bowed low to Kat, and Kat smiled.

"Hello, Gigi. Do you have any brownies laying around here?"

"Brownies miss? We can make up some brownies if you would wait just a moment!" The elf bowed them to one of the tables and scurried away. Dozens more appeared and brought them milk and napkins and cookies and lasagna (strange craving Sirius and Peter shared) and then finally, the brownies arrived.

Kat took one and sighed contentedly as it melted in her mouth. The elves were hovering anxiously around her, and she realized they were waiting for her approval. "These are spectacular!" She said through a mouthful. The elves all bowed happily multiple times with words of thanks and went about their business.

"I love these guys," Sirius said as an elf brought him more lasagna. The elf bowed happily and ensured Sirius that he would be back with more lasagna is Sirius wanted more. "I wish Kreacher was this nice."

"Who's Kreacher?" Kat asked, happily eating another brownie. There hadn't been anything chocolate at dinner and she'd been craving it all day.

"My family's house elf," Sirius muttered darkly, staring into space. He seemed to realize that he was still holding a plate of lasagna a few moments later and began eating again.

An hour later they left the kitchens with their pockets filled to bursting with all of the treats the elves had pushed on them. They asked Kat to come back and visit whenever she wanted and she happily planned on taking them up on the offer. Kat was chatting happily with Peter and Remus on their way up to the common room, and James and Sirius were arguing about something when a voice suddenly said,

"Well now, what are we doing out of bed at a time like this?"

They whirled around to find Professor Clark emerging from the shadows wearing a purple dressing gown and eyeing them with a look of contempt.

"You'd best explain yourselves," he said.

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**How's that for a cliff hanger? Next chapter will be up much, much sooner!**


	13. The Smell of Blood

"Professor, we were just—"

"Be quiet!" snapped Professor Clark. His eyes were darting around crazily and Kat could see him sweating. "It's been so long, so long…" He moaned softly. He wet his lips and kept shooting glances everywhere at once.

"So long since what, Professor?" Remus asked quietly. He was giving Professor Clark a very odd look, somewhere between curiosity and loathing. Remus' lip curled.

Kat saw Sirius shoot James a look and knew they were all thinking the same thing—there was something seriously wrong with Professor Clark and Remus. Clark looked nothing like his usual, posh self. In fact, he was quite the opposite. His blonde hair was in complete disarray and his dressing gown was wrinkled. His face was paler than usual and one of his eyes was twitching and he was brandishing his wand at them.

Remus looked almost equally frightening. For the first time, Kat could see why people were afraid and hated werewolves. Remus had his teeth bared and the scars on his face were standing out. She could tell by the way that he was standing that his was getting ready to hit Professor Clark and the full moon was approaching soon. Kat had never seen Remus angry or violent, and she wished she never had to see it again.

"Never mind why you are out of bed," his eyes were bulging as he stared at Kat. "Boys, go back to bed. I'll take the girl with me." He'd begun to sway side to side. Kat backed up until she was next to James.

"What do you mean, you'll take the girl?" James grabbed her arm. "Did you forget our names all of a sudden, or something?"

"I know who you are, Perkins. Now go on off to your common room with the rest of your friends, and I'll make sure Miss Todd finds her way back there."

James and Sirius exchanged a worried glance. Apparently, Professor Clark was seriously unhinged and didn't even know who they were anymore. "We'll all go back to the common room, Professor," James said, starting to edge away and pulling Kat with him.

Kat was scared. Why, oh why hadn't they put the cloak on before they left the kitchens? The goodies in her pockets were beginning to seem insignificant and irresponsible. Why had she made James take her to the kitchens in the middle of the night instead of during the day? Surely Professor Clark wouldn't have caught them and been acting so strangely. Professor Clark was looking at her in a hungry sort of way and she had no desire what so ever to be alone with him, for even a second. He looked unhealthy and extremely pale; he reminded her of a picture she'd seen once of a vampire in her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook.

Just as she and James began edging away, Clark let out a sort of howl and lunged for her, grabbing her around her arm. His hand was cold and claw-like. He pulled her away from James and at the same time he waved his wand and cast a spell on the boys. They were frozen in place, unable to move. James was stuck in the act of reaching for Kat and Sirius was frozen in a run, while Remus and Peter were stuck with astonished looks on their faces. Their eyes however, were still moving.

Kat screamed but was quickly silenced with a nonverbal silencing charm. Clark smiled at her, a vicious grimace. Kat tried screaming again, but her throat didn't seem to work anymore. She tried to struggle free from his grip, but his hand clutched tightly at her arm. He pulled her closer and she thought she saw a flash of long, bright fangs glinting in the light from the stars just visible through a window. Professor Clark lifted her bodily over his shoulder with seemingly superhuman strength and took her away.

Sirius watched, heart in his throat, as Professor Clark took Kat. He was in a state of panic and he was having trouble breathing. That bastard had taken Kat! Sirius was stuck in running position after the weird charm Clark had cast on them. He couldn't move his legs, arms, or body at all. All he could do was make a noise deep in his throat, which he did. He could hear James doing the same thing next to him.

Suddenly there was a sound like shattering glass and a large brown rat ran in front of Sirius.

_Pete! _

The rat ran around in a circle then went to go chew at the floor near Remus' feet. Taking his cue, Sirius screwed up his mind in concentration and felt his thoughts becoming less complex and his feelings melded into one giant mass of panic. Opening his eyes, he gave a yip and danced around, free from whatever charm Clark had cast on them. Still in dog form, Sirius jumped up on his back legs and knocked the frozen Remus over, shattering the spell. Remus blinked at dog-Sirius before cracking a wry smile.

"I always knew it was a good idea for you guys to become Animagi."

Sirius transformed back into his human self just as James transformed into a stag. Even in his panicked state, he was still awestruck that he and his friends had managed to figure out the magic behind Animagi. They were some serious bad asses.

"Okay, this is really, really weird. And bad," James said, after he had reverted back to being human.

"What the hell is up with Clark, huh?" Peter asked. "He looked…thirsty."

They all exchanged wide eyed glances. Would Dumbledore really hire a…?

"Merlin, we have to get Kat, now!" Sirius roared, about to sprint off in the direction Clark had disappeared in. James caught him by the hood of his robes.

"Dammit, I can't believe I never put two and two together," Remus spat on the ground.

"What do you mean?"

"I always thought there was something off about Clark. I could smell it on him."

"Smell it?" Peter's eyes were wide with fear.

"Vampires and werewolves don't get along very well," Remus said with another wry smile. "My wolf side just wasn't paying close attention to Clark."

"We don't even know if we didn't notice it, right now we need to go! He's got Kat!" Sirius slapped James' hand off his robes and glared furiously at him. He knew he had inherited his mother's glare, and sure enough, James backed off a bit.

"We can't just go charging after a vampire!"

"I know, I know. Remus, Pete," James turned to point to them. "You guys go and get Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall." After a brief moment, Remus nodded and sprinted off to find Dumbledore, with Peter in his wake. James turned to Sirius. "Let's go."

Sirius led the way, sprinting up the corridor with James following. They got to a point where they could keep going straight or turn left. He cursed under his breath and spun on the spot, looking desperately down each corridor, hoping to see some sign of Kat. He was just beginning to curse the size of the castle when James came up behind him.

"Wait, Sirius," James said, glancing down the corridor to the left. "You can turn into a dog."

"Yeah, so?"

"So turn into one and use your nose to find her!"

"Oh, right." Sirius screwed up his concentration again and imagined being a dog. Even though he was still new at it, each transformation was becoming easier and he had to concentrate less and less each time. His thoughts as a dog were a little more difficult to control and understand which took a while to get used to. The tail was definitely something that he would have to get used to. But so far, he loved being able to turn into a dog.

He circled around on the spot in his dog form and sniffed the stone floor. James scooted out of his way and started pacing. Sirius caught whiff of various smells, including what he thought was troll boogies. After sorting through the dozens of student scents, he found one he recognized. It was a soft combination of fresh parchment, with just a hint of cinnamon—Kat! And her scent was mixed with another, harder metallic one. They led down the corridor to the left. Sirius gave a quiet yip to let James know that he had found Kat's scent and set off into the dark corridor.

"Oh, this is so stupid. _Lumos!_" James ignited the tip of his wand so that the corridor glowed. Several portraits on the wall snuffled in their sleep and turned away from the sudden light.

With his nose still plastered to the ground, sniffing out Kat's scent among the hundreds that lingered, Sirius led them to an unused classroom. He sniffed the doorknob and recoiled—he smelled blood. He could hear muffled sounds coming from inside and turned to look at James. James put a finger to his lips to indicate that they needed to stay quiet. Sirius started to nod, but remembered that he was still a dog and stopped himself. He transformed back into a human.

"Let's get in there!" He breathed quietly in James' ear. James looked down the hall as if expecting to see Professor Dumbledore coming down the corridor with Remus and Peter, but there was no one there. The only sounds were portraits snoring and the muffled sounds coming from inside the classroom. James nodded.

Sirius took a deep breath to brace himself for what he might see and swung the door open. The scene that met his eyes was worse than he had expected. He felt his stomach drop to the floor. All of the desks in the classroom were shoved against the wall, leaving a wide dusty space. Kat was lying on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling with the top of her blouse unbuttoned. Her collar was stained crimson and Sirius could see more blood dripping from a wound on the side of her neck. Her face was deathly pale and if it weren't for the miniscule rise and fall of her chest, she might have been dead.

Professor Clark was hunched over in the far corner of the room with his back to them. At the sound of the door crashing open, he turned to face them and Sirius gagged. His eyes were completely black with no white showing at all, as if the pupils had taken over entirely. Fresh blood had streamed down from his mouth and was beginning to coagulate at the corners. He raised his blood covered hands in front of his face to block out the light that was coming from James' wand.

All Sirius could do was stare at Kat's motionless body on the floor. Her eyes were open, but they were just staring blankly at the ceiling. She hadn't even reacted when they opened the door. James ran to her side and pressed his hand against her neck wound.

"What did you do to her?" Sirius shouted, pointing his want at Clark. He could feel the flames of anger licking at the sides of his stomach, quenching the gut wrenching fear the sight of Kat had brought along. At the sound of his voice, Kat blinked and turned her head slightly.

"Shh," Sirius heard James coo from behind him. "It's alright, we're here."

"What did you do?" Sirius repeated, stomping over to where Clark was crouching. He had never been this furious in his entire life. How dare Dumbledore put them all in this danger by hiring a vampire? How dare Professor Clark take Kat? And how dare he drink from her? Right now, the only thing that was going through his head was that this undead thing had tried to drink one of his friends dry of all their blood. It disgusted him to even think about, so he let his hot anger swoop in again and take over his emotions.

"I couldn't help it," Clark moaned. He was rocking back and forth now and sobbing. "It's been so long since I've had real blood, fresh blood. Horace's potions only do so much."

Sirius raised his wand higher, thinking to hex the life out of his undead professor when there was a second bang as the door swung open again. Professor Dumbledore was standing in the doorway, looking impressive in the light of his lit wand, with Remus, Peter, and Professor McGonagall in his wake. His eyes took in the scene in a second and in the blink of an eye he was between Sirius and Clark.

"Leave him be, Mister Black," Dumbledore said, holding his arm out to stop Sirius from jumping on Clark. "Minerva, will you help take Miss Campbell, erm Miss Potter down to the hospital wing? She will need some attention."

All Sirius could hear was a pounding in his ears as he hurried back over to Kat. Her eyes were closed now and she looked even paler. He took her hand and was alarmed to feel that it was ice cold. He could hear deep voices behind him, and knew that Dumbledore was saying something to Professor Clark but he didn't know or care what was being said. All that mattered was that they get Kat to the hospital wing as quickly as possible. Then he could think about what Clark had done.

Professor McGonagall conjured a stretcher out of thin air and with the help of James and Sirius, lifted Kat up on to the stretcher. To Sirius, she looked so small and delicate that a gust of wind would blow her away. She was paler than the white linen the stretcher was made out of. "Come with me," McGonagall said, and they followed her out of that horrid room.

Sirius' mind didn't stop spinning for the entire journey to the hospital wing. He kept thinking about what would happen if Kat didn't wake up or what would happen if Professor Clark's venom took effect. His anger had morphed back into panic and he held one of Kat's hands on the way to see Madame Pomfrey. James was on the other side of Kat cursing and bellowing like an ox but Sirius barely heard him.

The next few hours were a sort of blur. Madame Pomfrey came and fussed over Kat, taking her and hiding her away behind the same curtains that she used to give Remus privacy after a full moon. Sirius didn't like not being able to see what was happening to Kat and was relieved when Madame Pomfrey took the curtains down. Kat was now dressed in a nightgown and had heavy bandages taped to her neck where she'd been bitten. Madame Pomfrey told them that she would wake up in a couple of hours and should be fine, she would just have to take a blood replenishing potion every hour or so until her body recovered from the loss.

Then came the individual interrogations from Professor McGonagall and eventually Professor Dumbledore. They both wanted to know about Clark's behavior in class for the past few weeks and about his behavior toward students. Then, they started asking awkward questions about why the five of them were walking around the castle so late at night. Eventually, the questions stopped and Sirius was told that he and James could go up to the common room and get some sleep.

None of the Marauders wanted to leave Kat's side so they one by one ended up falling asleep in chairs around her bed.

_She was sitting in a dimly lit kitchen at a rickety old table. A man was sitting next to her, his head in his hands and his shoulders were shaking. The sound of his sobs echoed through the dismal kitchen. Feeling pity, she outstretched her hand and gripped his shoulder. He dropped his hands to look at her, and she realized it was an older Remus. There were lines on his face and another scar, but the anguish stretched across his face broke her heart. And suddenly, she was unbearably sad. It was like a giant, gaping hole had been blown inside her body and everything ached because of it. Tears were sliding silently down her face and she was shaking. Remus gripped her hand in his own and together they cried in the kitchen. _

"Hey, look she's crying."

"Maybe she realized that she had a prat like you sitting at her bedside."

"Ouch, that hurt, Evans."

"Shh, she's opening her eyes!"

Her eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. Finally, Kat managed to open her eyes and she could see blurred shapes crowded around her. She could see red hair that she recognized as Lily's, along with other colors. She blinked a few times and everything came into focus. She was staring at the ceiling of the hospital wing and her friends were all crowded around her bed, staring down at her. Sirius' face split into a grin.

"How ya feeling?" He asked. "You've been in here for three days!"

Alarmed, Kat tried to speak, but all that came out was a hoarse mew, sort of like a thirsty kitten.

"Black, you idiot. Madame Pomfrey said she wasn't supposed to try and talk!" Lily hissed, hands on her hips. "Do you remember what happened to you, Kat? You can nod or shake your head."

Kat thought hard to remember, but it was all a sort of blur. She remembered something gripping her arm tightly and a sickening horror of a shadow. She shook her head.

"Do you remember what Professor Clark did?" Lily asked.

Professor Clark? Did he have something to do with the pain in the side of her neck?

"What are you all still doing here?" Madame Pomfrey had appeared at the foot of her bed. "I told you, this girl needs rest! Shouldn't you be in class anyway?"

"We have a free period since—" James began.

Madame Pomfrey cut him off. "Very well, but leave this girl be! Out, out!" She made shooing motions with her arms.

"We'll be back later." James whispered to Kat before following everyone out of the hospital wing.

When the door shut behind them, Kat was left alone in the empty hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey had returned to her office and all Kat had to do was stare at the ceiling and think about what had happened. She remembered bits and pieces of how she ended up in the hospital. She remembered visiting the kitchens, Sirius eating his lasagna, and then getting caught on the stairs. Slowly, it dawned on her that Professor Clark, their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, was a vampire. And he'd bitten her. Panicking, she reached up to her neck and winced when she touched the bandages. Her arm felt leaden and she let it fall back on her cot. She painfully turned her head to the right and felt overwhelming relief when she saw the sun shining through the windows. Apparently, she had not been turned into a vampire.

Relaxing, she closed her eyes and thought over her dream. The details of it were slipping away and her mind was still fuzzy, but she remembered that she had been terribly sad and so had Remus. She wasn't sure if what she saw was some sort of premonition, her family had never mentioned that they were related in any way to a Seer. She decided that it was a result of her blood loss and pushed it from her mind.

Madame Pomfrey returned from her office with a goblet full of potion. "You'll have to take one of these every two hours, dear," she said calmly, handing the goblet over to Kat. Kat tentatively took a sip and wrinkled her nose at the taste. "I know, I know, it doesn't taste good, but we have to replenish all that blood that you lost." Kat finished the rest of the potion and sank back down onto her pillows.

The Marauders returned, without Lily a few hours later with their arms stuffed with gifts for Kat. Remus had brought her the homework she had missed from her three days in the hospital wing, but James, Sirius, and Peter had brought an assortment of treats. Cauldron cakes, muffins, pastries, and other tasty sweets spilled out of their arms and onto her bed.

"I hope these make you feel better," Peter said, handing her a blueberry muffin. She smiled at him to show that she appreciated the thought. She nibbled a little bit at the muffin, but found that she couldn't quite swallow it yet—her throat was still not working right.

"I'm sure you want to know what happened," Remus said, depositing the stack of books on the table beside her hospital bed. Kat nodded emphatically, and then winced. You didn't really notice how much you moved your neck until it hurt to do so.

"Dumbledore went ballistic," James began. The boys were helping themselves to the small mountain of treats at the foot of her bed. "He fired Clark and said he'd take him in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures if he didn't pack up and leave right then and there. He went on some spiel about trusting him, and even providing him with synthetic blood (courtesy of Professor Slughorn, I guess). It was some pretty deep stuff. Dumbledore announced at dinner yesterday that we aren't having Defense Against the Dark Arts for the rest of the year, so everyone has a free period. But he told Fifth Years and Seventh Years that we still have to study the subject for our O.W.L.'s or N.E.W.T.'s."

"That's a shame, that is," Sirius chimed in.

"We don't really seem to keep Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for very long, do we?" Pete mused. The rest of the boys shrugged. "Well, we've had five just since we started here! And I heard people the other day saying that the job was cursed or something."

"Oh, stop being a prat, Peter," Sirius said. "Who cares about how many teacher we have?"

"Anyway, now we know why Clark was always leering after students in his classes. He wanted to eat them," James said, shivering slightly. "I'm so sorry we let him take you."

Kat shrugged to say that it was alright. She wanted them to know that she didn't think what had happened was their fault. Clark cast some kind of crazy magic that held them up. It turned out alright in the end. At least she hadn't been turned into a vampire.

"No, really. We all feel really bad about it." Sirius took her hand and squeezed it lightly. Kat returned the pressure and smiled a bit, but shrugged again. It wasn't their fault. She gave a huge yawn. "We'll let you get some sleep now." He stood to leave, but Kat kept hold of his hand and squeezed it tight. She didn't want to be left alone again. The memory of her dream was creeping into the back of her mind and she didn't want them to leave. Seeing the look in her eye, Sirius sat back down and leaned back in his chair. "Okay, we'll stay for a while." Kat flashed him a relieved smile and sat up in bed.

For the next hour or so, the boys kept her entertained by having a contest to see who could fit the most Cauldron cakes in their mouth and spraying each other with crumbs when they started laughing. James and Peter disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a flagon of pumpkin juice and a plate of cookies just as Sirius' and Remus' card house exploded (Peter had brought along his Exploding Snap deck and they had commandeered a bedside table to use as their base). They were just setting up the beginnings of a good party, when Madame Pomfrey came out of her office again to administer Kat's next dosage of blood replenishing potion.

"Oh, ick." Peter wrinkled his nose at the smell. Kat had to agree with him. The potion had a rich, metallic smell that forcibly reminded her of Professor Clark. She downed the potion quickly to get it over with.

"Now you boys leave my patient alone!" Madame Pomfrey accepted the goblet back from Kat and started shooing the boys out. "Take all of this food with you too! She's not allowed any solid foods for another day. Then you can feed her to your hearts' content." She oversaw the cleanup of the baked goods then left to tend a fourth year at the other end of the hospital wing whose eyebrows had grown so large that they impeded his vision.

"I guess we'll see you later," James said glumly, scuffing his shoes on the floor. He, Remus, and Peter left the hospital wing, but Sirius lingered behind in his chair.

"You have no idea how worried I was about you," he said quietly, gazing steadily at Kat. She felt her cheeks burn. "Seriously, I was panicking. I feel like it was my fault that we didn't find you sooner. I couldn't pinpoint your scent soon enough." Kat raised an eyebrow to show she didn't understand. Sirius explained how he'd used his Animagus form to literally sniff her out. Kat was impressed. "I was so angry and scared when I found you that I almost jinxed Clark into a million pieces." He stood up abruptly. "I'm glad you're okay," he said quickly before turning away.

Kat caught his arm. "Thanks for saving me," she said in a hoarse whisper. Sirius smiled at her and shook his head and then he too left the hospital wing.


	14. The Beginnings of a Map

**I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to update! I've had a crazy, busy week but that's no excuse to make you guys wait so long! Now that school is starting soon, this story is going to turn into an update-every-Saturday type of story. I'll try my best to make the chapters nice and long after this one and post before Saturdays if possible.**

**So it took someone pointing it out to realize that this whole time I've been spelling Gryffindor wrong *face palm* I can't believe I did that...I feel stupid T_T if anyone else notices stupid and/or dumb spelling mistakes like that again, please let me know. I really should read and edit these before I post them...**

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Kat left the hospital wing the next day while everyone else was still in their afternoon classes. Madame Pomfrey had given her one last blood replenishing potion (this one courtesy of Professor Slughorn, he'd sent Kat a gift basket with a bottle of it tied in a silver bow. She'd have to thank him for that one) before letting her leave. Her neck was still a little stiff and hurt a bit when she turned it, but her queasiness and lightheadedness from the blood loss had diminished significantly. She'd left her hair down and had it over her shoulder to hide the two pinpoint marks still visible on her neck. Madame Pomfrey had said that she would have them for the rest of her life, though they would fade from the brilliant scarlet they were now.

She was immensely grateful that Remus had brought her all the work that she had missed because she didn't want to fall behind. She was carrying all the books in her arms as she trudged slowly up to the Gryffindor common room, staggering slightly under their weight. The portraits along the walls whispered as she passed them and she wrinkled her brow.

"Is it really true?" One of them asked. "Did he really turn you into one?"

"What was it like, to be bitten by a vampire?" asked another.

Of course all sorts of rumors would be flying around about the teacher who attacked a student. Kat had expected the rumors, but wasn't looking forward to telling everyone what happened. She made it up to the common room with a chorus of whispers and questions from every painting she passed before she stopped in front of the Fat Lady.

"Password?"

"Baubles."

"No, sorry dear. The password's changed."

Kat swore under her breath. Perfect. Her arms were beginning to ache from holding all her books. All she wanted to do was sink into one of the armchairs in front of the fire and wait for her friends to finish their lessons. She dropped her books on the ground with a loud _thump_ and swung her hair back over her shoulder. The Fat Lady gasped.

"Oooh, that's where he bit you, isn't it?" She said, excitedly pointing at the two red spots on Kat's neck. Kat quickly covered them up with her hand. She'd have to start wearing a scarf everywhere or something, at least until the fervor quieted down. "Oh, Dumbledore was so angry," the Fat Lady said happily. "Tell me how it happened."

"If you're not going to let me in, just leave me alone," Kat snapped. She didn't want to explain what had happened to a painting. Talking about it again would make everything seem more real, and less of a nightmare.

"There's no need to be so testy. I just wanted to know if what I've heard is true."

"Oh, yeah? And what have you heard?"

"Well Violet said that he lured you into an empty classroom by using some sort of seductive charm that made you leave your bed in the middle of the night to walk all the way down to the third floor and into the—"

"Stop, stop, stop!" Kat cut her off. "None of that is true, and make sure you tell people that." She could feel her face burning. Did people think that any spell could make her voluntarily meet with Clark in the middle of the night? "It was completely by chance that he chose me. It could have been anyone." And that statement really hit home. Any one of the students, or even teachers who resided at Hogwarts could have become Clark's midnight snack, but Kat just happened to be stupid enough to get caught out of bed with her friends. She made a mental note to tell James they weren't going to wander around the castle at night anymore. He could have gotten drained by Clark, something that Kat would never have forgiven herself for since it was her idea to go down to the kitchens.

She sat down on her pile of books just as the bell rang, signaling the end of classes for the day. "At least I won't have long to wait…" she muttered under her breath. She could hear the sound of hundreds of footsteps on the staircases and corridors below her. Not wanting to be stared at the same way the portraits had hissed and stared at her, Kat kicked her books behind a suit of armor and hid behind it. It creaked good-naturedly and nodded its helmeted head at her before turning adopting a wide stance and screening her from view.

From her hiding place, she saw Khristine walk by arm in arm with some seventh year boy Kat didn't know, saw (and heard) Eileen talking loudly with some of the other member of the Quidditch team, watched Arabella shuffle along carrying way more books than the rest of the students, and saw Lily looking rather depressed. Kat felt obligated to see what was wrong with Lily, since Lily had visited her in the hospital wing, but she didn't want to leave her little sanctuary behind the suit of armor. She wasn't ready for people to stare yet, so she let Lily pass her by with the rest of the crowd of Gryffindors.

She waited for twenty more minutes, but there was still no sign of Remus, James, Sirius, or Peter. People were starting to leave the common room again to dinner and Kat's stomach started growling. When Lily passed by the suit of armor again, Kat swallowed and stepped out to follow her. She fell in step with Lily without her noticing for a few seconds. Then, "Kat! Oh thank goodness, you're out!" Lily threw her arms around her neck, making her flinch. "Oh, sorry. I went to see you after lessons but you weren't there." She smiled widely at Kat and Kat felt herself smiling back for the first time in days.

"You haven't seen the boys, have you?" She asked.

"Boys? Which boys? There are hundreds of them here, y'know," Lily said, taking her arm. Together the two of them began making their way through the steady stream of students making their way down to dinner. Several people craned their heads to get a better look at Kat and began whispering behind their hands to their friends. "Just ignore them, Kat. They've got nothing better to do but gossip." Lily walked with her head high and a slight smile on her face and Kat copied her.

"But you know which boys I'm talking about. Remus, Sirius, Peter, Ja—"

"Oh, yeah. Those idiots. No one's seen them all day. They skipped out on all of their classes, even Remus. Actually, I think Remus is sick again," Lily said, frowning. Kat's heart sank. So her friends were preparing to run around under the full moon?

"Oh," was all she said.

"Don't worry about them, though. You can sit with me at dinner." Lily had steered them all the way to the Great Hall which was only half full.

They sat at the far end of their table, the farthest from the door. Kat put her hand over the marks on her neck and stared resolutely at the table as the rest of the students came into the Hall. Lily chatted away to her happily about all the things she had missed while she was in the hospital wing. Apparently Khristine was now dating that seventh year boy ("He's two years older than us!" Lily had exclaimed excitedly), a Hufflepuff's uncle had gone missing, and the fifth and seventh years still had to study for their Defense Against the Dark Arts exams.

"Oh, and don't worry, I fed your rabbit for you."

Kat felt a jump of guilt. She had forgotten completely about Mr. Snowy the entire time she was in the hospital wing. Some pet owner she was…

Suddenly, the Hall got dead silent and Kat looked up. Professor Dumbledore was standing up with his arms spread and was obviously the reason everyone had quieted down. "Before we begin, I have a few words again," he said in his calm voice. "Miss Potter has returned from the hospital wing, and I must ask you all to leave her alone. She has been through an ordeal that was entirely not her fault, and has had to suffer the consequences of other's actions.

Dinner wasn't too bad. She couldn't hear the whispers over the general buzz of conversation in the Great Hall. Sadly, she couldn't really swallow anything more solid than mashed potatoes, so the majority of her dinner was all starch. Until dessert, of course, when she loaded up on chocolate pudding. Lily raised an eyebrow, but Kat told her "Hey, I've been in the hospital. I can eat what I want." Lily laughed and joined in on the pudding eating.

After dessert was finished, Lily and Kat began making their way up to the common room. Something collided with Kat hard enough to make her fall to the hard floor of the Entrance Hall and something heavy landed on top of her. With the wind knocked out of her, it took her a few stunned seconds to realize that she was lying on the bottom of a dog pile, with James and Sirius on top of her. From her low vantage point, she could just make out the shoes of Remus and felt more wind get knocked out of her when Peter joined the pile.

"Oh, yay we found you!"

"You're out!"

"We've been looking for you!"

"When'd you get out?"

"James you idiot! She's been in the hospital! You shouldn't do that to her!" Kat could hear Lily yelling and imagined that her hands were on her hips. "Get off of her, all of you!"

The crushing weight began to lessen until it was just her lying on the floor of the Entrance Hall. She struggled to her feet and gratefully took in huge gulps of air. Grinning like crazy because she couldn't help it, Kat watched Lily yell at the boys for squashing her. After a few minutes (and people staring at the arguers again) Lily stomped off to the tower and left them.

"How are you feeling?" Remus asked quietly from her right.

"I've been better."

"I know the feeling." Lily was right, he was looking ill again and Kat realized that her counting of the full moon was a few days off. "It's good to have you back though. They've been pinning away for you," he said, gesturing at James and Sirius.

"Have not!" They chorused together.

"Hey! Jinx, you owe me a butterbeer!"

"Like hell I'll get you a butterbeer. You get me one."

"Like hell I'll do that!"

"Hey, shut up! You're giving me a headache," Kat said, rubbing her temples. James and Sirius glowered at each other for a few more seconds before breaking into laughter. "Where have you been all day?"

"Well, we've started a new project. Sort of," James said happily, pulling Kat towards the stairs.

"You've been skipping class all day to work on a project?" She asked skeptically.

"Well, it isn't really a school project, but it does have to do with the school," said Sirius, following them. Remus and Peter were bringing up the rear.

"Wait, a minute. Where are we going?" Kat asked, surprised when James didn't take her the way to the common room. "Are we going to the library?"

Sirius wrinkled his nose. "Sadly, yes. It's a terribly boring place."

"It isn't that bad!" said Remus.

"You guys have voluntarily been spending time in the library? I know that's normal for Remus, but James, Sirius…you too?"

"Crazy, huh?" James said. "If we get there sooner, we can show you some of what's been up before Madam Pince closes the library for the night."

"It was Pete's idea, really." James said, turning a corner. "After Clark scared the hell out of us when he showed up out of nowhere, Pete said we should do something where we could always know where everyone in the school is. It'll also come in handy with pranks and stuff."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Well, you're helping too," Remus said. "I need someone else to help me come up with witty lines."

"What d'you mean?" Kat asked.

"Ta da! The library!" James led the group to the very back of the library to a table already piled high with books. "We're making a map," he said quietly.

"A map?" Kat raised an eyebrow.

"You got it, a map of Hogwarts!"

"I thought it was unplottable…?"

"It is, but that doesn't mean you can't make a map of it. You just can't put it on a map."

"So you're-_we're _going to make a map of the school…and what, use it to spy on people?"

"Not _spy_ on people, we'll just know where they are so they can't surprise us again, the way Professor Clark did," said Sirius bitterly. "Still can't believe that…"

Kat whistled. "This is going to take some serious work. And do you really know the school that well to actually map it? I still get lost with the staircases changing and all…"

James gave a low chuckle. "We have an invisibility cloak that lets us go anywhere we want. And, every month we're going to run around outside, exploring everywhere and everything." Remus looked away, uncomfortable.

"So what do you think?" Sirius asked his eyes bright with adventure.

Kat smiled. "I think it's totally crazy. But we can do it."

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**Sorry it was so short. I was typing like frantic to get it out to you all so you could have something to read from me...**


	15. Chapter 15A

**Hey everyone! I'm so, so sorry for the delay. School and other stuff have made me liars about my promised post time -_- I'm working really, really hard to get this next chapter out soon. Since these things can't be used for just author's notes I'll add the first part of the next chapter. I'm slaving away on the rest of it! Oh and a shout out to LiaElocin13 for giving me so many good reviews! Reading all those reviews is helping me steam on through writing this monster...Here's the first part! Hopefully the rest will be up soon! Lots of love everyone!**

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"Hey, have you seen Kat?"

"She's probably still asleep," Sirius yawned. He stabbed another sausage with his fork and dunked it in a pool of syrup. He was sitting by himself at breakfast because the rest of the guys were still sleeping. He was rather irritated that he was up so early. They'd stayed up late into the night working on their map and they'd had little success. Spring had settled over the castle, and with it came the annoying birds. He'd woken up to the sound of some stupid ones chirping outside his window at the ungodly hour of 6:30 on a Saturday and couldn't get back to sleep. "I wish I was still asleep," he grumbled.

"She's not in our dorm," Lily replied. She sat on the bench next to him and propped her chin on her hand. "I've been looking for her all morning." Where Sirius was rather grumpy and had thrown on some old jeans and a t-shirt, Lily had actually combed her hair and was looking radiant, despite the early hour. Sirius could see why James had a monster crush on her.

"Relax and have a sausage," Sirius said nudging the plate closer to her. "She'll turn up. She's always doing stupid things, like sleeping outside or getting lost."

"You like her, don't you?" Lily asked, looking him straight in the eye.

Sirius felt his stomach drop and paled. "Where did you get that idea?" He asked, as calmly as he could. He hadn't even told James about it, and they told each other everything. How awkward would it be if his best friend figured out that he had a massive crush on his sister, adopted or not?

"I've noticed the way you look at her."

Was he that obvious? He didn't like the idea of people being able to figure out his feelings so easily. His family was supposed to be known for being deep and difficult to figure out, hence the name Black.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," Lily said.

Sirius ignored her and kept munching on his breakfast. He made a mental note to stop being so obvious, but wasn't really sure about what he was supposed to fix. He was just about to get up and leave to wake up the rest of the guys when Kat walked in. Her hair was slightly disheveled and her eyes were still puffy from sleep, but Sirius thought she was beautiful. She yawned hugely when she saw him and shuffled over.

"M-m-m-morning," she stammered, failing to stifle another huge yawn.

"Where've you been?" Lily asked.

Kat swung her leg over the bench and sat down next to Sirius. "Sleepin'."

"Not in the dorm, you were."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Remember last night after dinner?"

Sirius nodded. Kat had seemed upset about something and had announced that she wanted to take a walk around the lake before turning in for bed. He'd just assumed that she wanted some alone time and hadn't thought much of it.

"Well on my walk I got tired, so I sat under the beech tree…and woke up this morning."

"Kat! You have to stop doing that! What if something happens to you? What if the teachers find you _out on the grounds_ at night?" Lily exclaimed, completely shocked.

"It's not like I'm in any danger or anything," Kat said, stifling another yawn. More students were filtering in to the Hall for breakfast. "Dumbledore keeps most things at bay."

"Not if it's a full moon," Sirius muttered in her ear as he reached to pour more orange juice into his beaker. Lily didn't hear him and kept chattering on about Kat getting into trouble.

"I'll be fine," Kat mumbled back quietly to him, but by the look in her eye, Sirius could tell that she was shaken at the thought. Running around with Moony as an animal during the full moon was okay since he was such a big dog, but Sirius didn't think he and James could stop him if Moony spotted a human sleeping beneath a tree.

"…completely ludicrous," Lily said, leaving them alone at the table.

"Just be careful about what time you feel like staying out at night," Sirius whispered again. He noticed with a slight swoop in his stomach that Kat smelled exactly like a spring night, thick with the smell of new flowers and grass with fresh air. He didn't notice that he was staring until Kat raised an eyebrow. He quickly looked away.

The guys made it down to breakfast a few minutes later, each looking irritated at being up "early". "You have no idea," he said irritably when Peter started whining about it.

"So what're we doing today?" James asked loudly before Sirius and Pete got into an argument.

"We should start studying," Remus said.

Sirius pulled a face. "It's only April! We still have time to chill before exams!"

"No, I think we should start studying now too," Kat said, agreeing with Remus. Remus smiled at her and she smiled back. Sirius could have growled.

"Ugh, you two can study. I'm going to play with the giant squid today and think up new ways to mess with Snivellus," James snorted.

"Sounds like a plan," Sirius said as his stomach made another unpleasant turn when Kat and Remus left for the library together.

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**More will hopefully make it's way out soon! And ooooooh the beginnings of a rivalry perhaps? **


	16. Riddikulus

**Okay, so yay! The full chapter fifteen! I've included the excerpt thingy that I posted in the last chapter thingy so it all flows together. Hopefully now, I can get back on track with posting this so people *cough cough you know who you are* don't kill me. The beginning of this is from Sirius' point of view but then it switches back to Kat. Enjoy and review!**

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"Hey, have you seen Kat?"

"She's probably still asleep," Sirius yawned. He stabbed another sausage with his fork and dunked it in a pool of syrup. He was sitting by himself at breakfast because the rest of the guys were still sleeping. He was rather irritated that he was up so early. They'd stayed up late into the night working on their map and they'd had little success. Spring had settled over the castle, and with it came the annoying birds. He'd woken up to the sound of some stupid ones chirping outside his window at the ungodly hour of 6:30 on a Saturday and couldn't get back to sleep. "I wish I was still asleep," he grumbled.

"She's not in our dorm," Lily replied. She sat on the bench next to him and propped her chin on her hand. "I've been looking for her all morning." Where Sirius was rather grumpy and had thrown on some old jeans and a t-shirt, Lily had actually combed her hair and was looking radiant, despite the early hour. Sirius could see why James had a monster crush on her.

"Relax and have a sausage," Sirius said nudging the plate closer to her. "She'll turn up. She's always doing stupid things, like sleeping outside or getting lost."

"You like her, don't you?" Lily asked, looking him straight in the eye.

Sirius felt his stomach drop and paled. "Where did you get that idea?" He asked, as calmly as he could. He hadn't even told James about it, and they told each other everything. How awkward would it be if his best friend figured out that he had a massive crush on his sister, adopted or not?

"I've noticed the way you look at her."

Was he that obvious? He didn't like the idea of people being able to figure out his feelings so easily. His family was supposed to be known for being deep and difficult to figure out, hence the name Black.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," Lily said.

Sirius ignored her and kept munching on his breakfast. He made a mental note to stop being so obvious, but wasn't really sure about what he was supposed to fix. He was just about to get up and leave to wake up the rest of the guys when Kat walked in. Her hair was slightly disheveled and her eyes were still puffy from sleep, but Sirius thought she was beautiful. She yawned hugely when she saw him and shuffled over.

"M-m-m-morning," she stammered, failing to stifle another huge yawn.

"Where've you been?" Lily asked.

Kat swung her leg over the bench and sat down next to Sirius. "Sleepin'."

"Not in the dorm, you were."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Remember last night after dinner?"

Sirius nodded. Kat had seemed upset about something and had announced that she wanted to take a walk around the lake before turning in for bed. He'd just assumed that she wanted some alone time and hadn't thought much of it.

"Well on my walk I got tired, so I sat under the beech tree…and woke up this morning."

"Kat! You have to stop doing that! What if something happens to you? What if the teachers find you _out on the grounds_ at night?" Lily exclaimed, completely shocked.

"It's not like I'm in any danger or anything," Kat said, stifling another yawn. More students were filtering in to the Hall for breakfast. "Dumbledore keeps most things at bay."

"Not if it's a full moon," Sirius muttered in her ear as he reached to pour more orange juice into his beaker. Lily didn't hear him and kept chattering on about Kat getting into trouble.

"I'll be fine," Kat mumbled back quietly to him, but by the look in her eye, Sirius could tell that she was shaken at the thought. Running around with Moony as an animal during the full moon was okay since he was such a big dog, but Sirius didn't think he and James could stop him if Moony spotted a human sleeping beneath a tree.

"…completely ludicrous," Lily said, leaving them alone at the table.

"Just be careful about what time you feel like staying out at night," Sirius whispered again. He noticed with a slight swoop in his stomach that Kat smelled exactly like a spring night, thick with the smell of new flowers and grass with fresh air. He didn't notice that he was staring until Kat raised an eyebrow. He quickly looked away.

The guys made it down to breakfast a few minutes later, each looking irritated at being up "early". "You have no idea," he said irritably when Peter started whining about it.

"So what're we doing today?" James asked loudly before Sirius and Pete got into an argument.

"We should start studying," Remus said.

Sirius pulled a face. "It's only April! We still have time to chill before exams!"

"No, I think we should start studying now too," Kat said, agreeing with Remus. Remus smiled at her and she smiled back. Sirius could have growled.

"Ugh, you two can study. I'm going to play with the giant squid today and think up new ways to mess with Snivellus," James snorted.

"Sounds like a plan," Sirius said as his stomach made another unpleasant turn when Kat and Remus left for the library together.

_Damn it._ Sirius thought several hours later. He'd spent the entire day with James and Peter plotting different ways of throwing Snivellus in the lake and then putting those plans into action. But in that entire time, he'd only seen Kat at lunch because she was spending the entire day with Moony in the library. He didn't think he'd be so jealous if she'd spent the day with say, Peter or James because there was no way anyone could have a crush on Peter and James was her brother now. But Remus, he was a different story. _Aside from his "hairy little problem_", he thought irritably, _the man's perfect! _He was polite and smart and even a little funny and maybe even good-looking if you got past the scars and…Sirius shook his head and sighed. He lay down in the soft, warm grass at the edge of the lake and sighed.

"What's wrong, mate?" James asked, flicking Sirius' shoe. He was staring at Lily Evans as she crossed the lawn to sit with her friends on the other side of the lake.

"Nothin'." Instead of looking at James, Sirius decided to watch Pete trying to wrestle with the giant squid that was basking in the warm shallows of the lake.

"Oh, come on," he said, tearing his eyes away from Lily to look at him. "There's gotta be something. You don't seem like the usual 'just screw it' Sirius today."

When Sirius didn't reply, James leaned over him to get a good look of his face. "Ohmagawd," he said really fast. "I knew it!"

"Knew what?" Sirius asked, sitting up so fast his forehead connected with James' jaw. Blinking at the pain, he tried to look nonchalant and not so spastic, but his eyes were watering from the impact and he couldn't see for a few minutes. James massaged his jaw and glared reproachfully at him. "Sorry."

"You have the same look on your face that people say I wear when I think about Evans!" James announced triumphantly. He sat down right across from Sirius and continued rubbing his chin. "So come on, tell me!"

Sirius really didn't want to tell James about his feelings for Kat. Lily already figuring it out was another thing, but saying it out loud to James would be…official and he wouldn't be able to take it back. Not to mention, James would hold it over his head like the time he told him he'd liked their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher their first year. She was really pretty and slender and…._FOCUS! _"Don't worry about it," he said instead.

James narrowed his eyes and stared at him, using the whole guilt maneuver to get him to talk. When Sirius didn't say anything, James scooted closer. "I'm going to guess!" James crossed his arms.

"Guess what?" Peter had emerged defeated from the lake and was sopping wet. Water dripped down his face making him look forlorn as his eyes moved from James to Sirius.

"Nothing," Sirius said gruffly. "Let's head inside for dinner, eh? I'm starving." He gave James a look that let him know that he would find out later. The last thing Sirius needed right now was for Peter to know he had a crush on Kat. Pete would probably tell Bertha Jorkins or someone and then the whole school would know. His whole "screw this" image would be ruined and people would think he was a pansy if he had a girlfriend. Or maybe they would be amazed that the aloof Sirius Black had settled down…not that it was important to have an image anyway. Sirius continued arguing in his head over the perks and consequences of having Kat as a girlfriend as they tromped up to the Great Hall for dinner.

"Ugh, I still can't get this!" For what seemed like the millionth time, Kat let her wand arm drop after the _click_ of the wardrobe and stared at the ceiling, her heart rate way too fast and the contents of her stomach heaving.

"You just need to focus more on the theory of it and it'll come to you."

Remus had been helping her practice banishing a boggart. The last thing Professor Clark had told them before he went psycho was hinting heavily that boggarts would be a part of their O.W.L.'s, and since Kat had never banished a boggart before, she needed some serious help. The two of them had been able to track down a boggart in an empty classroom on the third floor hidden away in a cupboard. Kat had no trouble remembering the spell (_Riddikulus!)_ but she couldn't think of anything funny to dress up her fear as.

At first, Remus had been baffled when the boggart transformed in front of Kat. "What the hell is that supposed to be?" He'd asked before realizing Kat was petrified and wide eyed. He had jumped in front of the boggart (which transformed itself into a full moon) before banishing it back to the cabinet. Kat continued staring at the spot where it had been floating in front of her and shivered.

"These things really suck," she had said.

Now, two hours later, she was facing her deepest fear every fifteen minutes (it took that long for her to calm down) and still hadn't been able to figure out some way to make it less awful. Between each try, Remus tried brainstorming with her on ways to make it less terrifying, and she would always tell him that she was ready to try again even as her stomach started heaving again.

"To hell with it!" Kat said, bringing herself back to the present. "Let's have at it one more time and then get some dinner."

"Are you sure you want another go? I'm getting tired of jumping in front of you, you know," Remus crossed his arms and stood between Kat and the wardrobe. It jumped a bit at the sound of his voice.

"I think I finally have an idea that'll work."

"If you're sure then…" Remus stepped aside to stand back by the window and flicked his wand.

Out poured blackness, complete and utter blackness that filled the whole of Kat's vision and blocked out the light from the windows until she was floating in it. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she couldn't even move. She lost all sense of direction and almost forgot where she was, she was so terrified. She could feel herself shaking and could feel the bile rising in her throat. And then, as if from far away, Remus' voice saying "Focus!"

Holding the picture firm in her head, Kat shakily raised her wand arm and said "_Riddikulus_!" Different shades gradually began to appear in the world of black around her, and soon she could make out colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. She was standing in the middle of a rainbow and there was a short, squat green little man at the end of it dancing around like a maniac. She gave a "Ha!" of triumph and the whole rainbow disappeared in a crack and then she was back to standing in the middle of an empty classroom with Remus applauding.

"I did it!" Kat danced around on the spot a little before she had to sit down. Her knees were shaking and she had a bad taste in her mouth.

"You did it!" Remus was standing in front of her with a huge grin plastered across his face. Kat smiled back. "Nice rainbow."

"Thanks. And thanks for helping me, really."

Remus waved his hand. "Don't mention it."

"Speaking of not mentioning, could you not mention to anyone what my fear is? I don't think people would take it well…I'm sure all sorts of exciting pranks will be put to good use…"

"My lips are sealed." Remus drew a finger across his mouth like he was closing a zipper to make the point.

Kat smiled at him again. She was immensely grateful for his help. After his first "what the hell was that supposed to be?" moment, he hadn't commented on what she feared most: darkness. All those years of being kept in a cellar had taken root in her mind and she just couldn't stand the dark. She'd picked the bed in the girl's dormitory that was closest to the window so the most light from the moon and stars could come in. Even when she slept outside sometimes at night, the light from the stars and moon were always there to light up her surroundings. Her memories of that dark, creepy basement were still fresh in her mind and she couldn't quite shake the notion that she would be going back there.

"Now come on, let's get some dinner." Remus reached out a hand to help her to her feet and they left the classroom together.

At dinner they sat with Sirius, James and Peter who filled them in on what they'd done to Snape all day. Sirius seemed oddly cool and distant with her, which was confusing. She couldn't remember doing something to piss him off and as far as she was concerned, they'd been getting along just swimmingly since the Valentine's Day event. She mentally shrugged it off and assumed that guys can get moody just like girls do.

"So how did the studying go, you boring losers?" James asked brightly after they'd finished dinner and were climbing the stairs to the Gryffindor tower.

"Kat made some progress today," Remus said.

"I did. I don't think I'll fail any of my exams!" Kat said happily, smiling at Remus. They'd really bonded today…

"That's great," Peter said. "I wish I could be that lucky…"

"You'll be fine, Pete! You've had way more experience with magic in school than I have so _relax_."

They pushed aside a tapestry to take a short cut which was lit with a couple torches. Peter was just about to reply to Kat's comment when the torches were extinguished and they were left in total and complete darkness. Kat screamed.

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**I'm rather proud of that cliff hanger actually. It took me a while to figure out what Kat's fear was going to be, and then it smacked me in the face! If you were stuck in a creepy basement your whole life, wouldn't you be afraid of the dark? Am I right...? Anyone...? Bueller? **


	17. Talk About Bad Luck

**Okay,**** so here we are after me first crazy cliff hanger. It was pretty good, wasn't it? Sorry it's taken a while to upload but school sucks...in case any one didn't know that before! Did everyone watch the season premiere of season seven of Doctor Who this past Saturday?! Oh it was goooood! Well, without further ado, here's chapter sixteen!**

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_When we last saw our friends, they were walking through a secret passageway when the torches were suddenly extinguished, plunging them into complete darkness. _

"What the hell?"

Blackness. Total Blackness.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

It was crushing her.

"Ouch, that was my foot."

She couldn't breathe. The fear that she had felt earlier today, battling boggarts with Remus came rushing back, causing her mouth to go dry.

"Kat, you're going to break my arm."

Somewhere in the blackness, Kat could hear laughter. She vaguely recognized it, but the overwhelming sense of fear made her oblivious.

"This is stupid._ Lumos_!" James' wand tip ignited and Kat blinked in the welcome light. She was gripping Peter's arm very hard and Sirius was massaging his foot from where someone stepped on it, while Remus was squinting down toward the end of the corridor. On the other end of the passage, she saw the tapestry flutter as someone slipped behind it. "You bastard," James grunted and sped off down the passage, taking the light with him.

"Wait!" She screamed.

"It's alright," Peter said, prying her hands from his arm. He reached into his pocket and lit the tip of his wand. Sirius sped down the passage after James leaving Kat with Peter and Remus. Her heart was still racing and her mind was having difficulty forming thoughts. She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt.

"Kat," Remus said, grabbing her shoulders. "It's alright, take some deep breaths." She looked into Remus's calm, reassuring brown eyes and forced herself to relax.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," she shook her head and swallowed. Her mouth was still dry.

BANG! The stones beneath their feet trembled a little and she could hear shouting.

"What the hell was that?" Peter said, his head turning quickly to the end of the corridor. The tapestry blocking the exit quivered.

"I think that was James," Remus muttered. "C'mon." He grabbed Kat's hand and sprinted down the passage, Peter following closely behind.

Remus pushed aside the tapestry to find the corridor beyond lit with a strange orange light with the acrid smell of smoke in the air. "Dammit, something's on fire." He sniffed and turned left, following the smoke. The sounds of a duel grew louder as they took another turn. Kat gasped at what she saw around the corner.

James was casting a shield spell as Aiden fired hex after hex. There was a cut above James' eye and his glasses were broken, and Aiden's sleeve was ripped. Two of the tapestries lining the wall were on fire and a suit of armor was lying scattered on the ground. Sirius was battling with one of Aiden's cronies, a student by the name of Dolohov. The spells hissed as they were cast and sparks flew when they collided. Kat ducked just as a nasty jinx whizzed past her head. Now she knew why she had recognized the laughter after the torches were extinguished.

"Oh my God," was all she could think of to say. Her heart was starting to flutter in panic while she stared at James dueling Aiden and Sirius wrangle with Dolohov.

"Pete, go get Professor McGonagall," she heard Remus yell. The next thing she knew, Remus was pulling her back down the hall away from the fighting.

"What are you doing?" She struggled in Remus' grip. She wanted to get back to the fighting and make sure nothing happened to James or Sirius.

"I'm making sure you don't get hurt. Those idiots are so absorbed they didn't even notice when we showed up. You nearly got hit."

"I don't care! That's James and Sirius!"

"Kat, Peter went to go get McGonagall. She'll sort it out. Now stay here!" He plopped her on a stone bench a good distance away from the fighting but she could still hear the noises and smell the smoke. Remus stood in front of her with his arms crossed and brow furrowed.

"Don't make me hex you, Remus."

He laughed. "Kat, I was just helping you study. I know what you're capable of, and I think I could stop you."

Kat glared at him but knew he was speaking the truth. She was good at charms, but Remus had more experience than she did when it came to using them on people. She sat on the stone bench with her arms crossed and head cocked, listening to the sounds coming toward them from the hall.

Other students were beginning to crowd the hallway, but none ventured forth to where the sounds of the fight were coming from. Instead, they gathered in groups and talked nervously about what they were hearing.

"What's going on?"

"Is someone fighting?"

"Oh my God."

"Should someone get a teacher? What should we do?"

"Kat!" Eileen appeared next to Remus with Arabella in her wake. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Sounds like there's some serious fighting," Arabella said, glancing over her shoulder. The sound of spells colliding had stopped but the smoke was still thick in the air with the orange flicker of flames on the walls. Kat was furious that Remus wouldn't let her see if the boys were done fighting.

"Uh oh, McGonagall's here," Eileen said. And sure enough, Professor McGonagall was speeding off down the fight, followed by Professors Slughorn and Flitwick.

"C'mon." Kat grabbed Remus' arm and shoved her way passed Remus and wove through the crowd, following the professors toward the crime while the rest of the students trailed behind her.

She turned the corner and could have slapped herself in the forehead. Their wands forgotten on the floor, all four boys were in a massive dog pile punching, kicking, and biting at every chance they got. One of the tapestries had reverted to a smoldering wall hanging, while the other one still burned. The light reflected off the suit of armor that lay strewn across the floor. The cut above James' eye was still bleeding with a cut on his chin to match, while Sirius' arm bled freely from a slice just above his elbow. They arrived around the corner just in time to see Dolohov punch James square in the jaw and see some of James' teeth fly from his mouth.

McGonagall flicked her wand, casting a silent spell that flung the boys away from each other and bound them with thick yellow rope. Aiden struggled wildly against the binds, but the other three boys gave no resistance. Professor Flitwick stood guard in front of James and Sirius while Professor Slughorn stood in front of Aiden and Dolohov.

"Now I don't know what could have possibly started all of this, but I want it ended here and now!" Professor McGonagall thundered. Her nostrils were flared and she looked murderous. "If I ever hear again that any of you comes within so much of hallway near each other, I will see you expelled! Two hundred points taken from each of you!" James blanched in his bonds and spat out some blood and a few more teeth. No one spoke. "You will each serve three months of detentions, which will carry over into your next year here. Be thankful that I am not sending you home tonight. I shall be writing to each of your parents and informing Professor Dumbledore of what took place here."

The crowd that had formed around the chaos began thinning as Professor McGonagall turned her rage on them. After yelling at them for standing around gawking at the most brazen example of rule breaking she had ever seen, she stormed over to where Kat and Remus were standing with Eileen and Arabella.

"Mister Lupin, I'm sure you had something to do with not getting Mister Pettigrew or Miss Potter here in trouble, and I thank you for that, and for sending Pettigrew to come and get me before things got even more out of hand." She nodded at him. "Now please escort Mister Black and Mister Potter to the hospital wing and ensure that they make it back to the dormitory without causing any more trouble." She turned abruptly and flicked her wand, returning the suit of armor to its proper place and extinguished the two tapestries. "We will have to get something to replace those," she frowned a bit before asking Professor Slughorn to take Aiden and Dolohov to the Slytherin common room where Madam Pomfrey would meet them after she dealt with James and Sirius. "I don't think it's a good idea for these boys to run into each other so soon." She released the bonds on them and swept off down the hall, presumably to talk to Professor Dumbledore and write some letters.

Remus slung Sirius' arm over his shoulder and supported him while Peter did the same with James and headed off toward the hospital wing. Without a backward glance at her brother, Kat followed behind them. James and Sirius didn't say much on the trip—James' jaw wasn't working too well after Dolohov had punched him and Sirius was limping and leaning heavily on Remus.

Kat was both worried and irritated with them at the same time. Boys were so stupid! They just had to charge off all on their own and resort to fighting just to settle something. True, extinguishing the torches in the passage had been a really low, cruel thing to do, and her heart still started beating fast when she thought about it, but it didn't meant that James and Sirius had to exact some sort of retribution on Aiden!

They arrived at the hospital wing to find Madame Pomfrey waiting for them. "Fighting were you, boys?" She clucked, irritated. "Sometimes I feel like you all live in my hospital wing, you're here so often."

Over the next ten minutes, she poked and prodded James and Sirius and made them drink all sorts of tonics and potions. She fixed James' teeth and mended Sirius' leg and gave them strict instructions to avoid any extraneous movement for the next week or so. Instead of going straight up to the common room however, the group left the castle and went out onto the grounds where the sun was setting.

"What happened?" Peter asked as they all plopped down beneath the beech tree on the shores of the lake.

"Aiden is what happened," James grumbled. "All I was going to do was yell at the idiot, maybe cast a trip jinx for turning the lights out on us, but he went all crazy. Started casting spells at me that I've never seen before…I had to defend myself. And then his crazy friend showed up…" He crossed his arms.

"Yeah, when I showed up, James was blocking curses from both of those blokes and I had to help him. Things sort of got out of hand though, once Aiden missed me and set the tapestries on fire," Sirius said, glowering at the ground.

Kat sighed in relief. "So neither of you set anything on fire?"

"Of course not! We were just aiming to disarm and maybe transfigure into small kittens!" James said indignantly. "It was those Slytherin idiots who were trying to do some real damage."

"I don't even know when we stopped using our wands, but it ended up turning into a giant fist fight," said Sirius.

"Yeah, we were there for that part," Remus said. "I had to practically drag Kat away from you guys so she wouldn't do something stupid."

"Hey, I was worried that something bad was going to happen to them!"

"Something bad _did _happen to us," James said, looking at Kat. "We were caught fighting a couple of kids younger than us and now we have detention during our first month as sixth years to look forward to, not to mention detention for every single night for the rest of this year on top of that, with O.W.L.'s to study for!"

"Talk about bad luck…" Sirius mumbled.

They were silent for a while. Kat sat looking at James and Sirius and gnawing her lip. The two of them were total idiots, but she loved them both anyway. And Remus had reacted remarkably cool during the whole thing, telling Peter to run and get help while pulling her away from the fighting. Things could have been much, much worse. As if to exemplify that fact, James grinned and said, "So Kitty, what was with the reaction in the dark?"

Kat felt herself go scarlet. "Don't call me Kitty!"

"What is Kitty afraid of the dark?" He grinned wickedly.

"Don't make me punch you in the face right after we just got it fixed," she said narrowing her eyes.

"Relax, I'm only joking, sis," James' grin vanished and he touched his face, looking worried.

Kat giggled a bit. "Don't worry, I won't break your face. But seriously," she turned somber. "I don't like the dark. It reminds me too much of..."

"Don't worry, we don't care," Sirius said, smiling kindly, a look Kat could count how many times she'd seen him wear on one hand. "We're all a bit weird."

"Pfft, that's an understatement," Peter guffawed.

"Yes, we know! But there's no need for you to go shouting it to the world!" James said, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

Kat smiled at her friends. "C'mon, we'd better get inside. The sun's about to go down."

"And we don't want to sleep outside all night like you do all the time. Can you imagine what state my hair would be in if I slept out here on the ground?" James said, popping up and running a hand through his hair, making it incredibly messy.

"I imagine it would look something like that," Remus smirked and pulled Sirius to his feet.

"We should hurry, though. McGonagall will kill us if she finds us wandering around after the sun goes down." Kat ushered a reluctant Peter to his feet and led the way back into the castle.

Most of the students were already in their dormitories, but the few they saw shook their heads wonderingly at James and Sirius when they walked by. Collectively, James and Sirius had lost Gryffindor four hundred points in one day, and the Gryffindors were not happy. James and Sirius kept their heads down and were whispering together, completely oblivious to the looks they were receiving. Kat had a nasty feeling that they were planning retribution.

They made it to the common room without too many distractions. Peeves thought it was funny to try and topple a suit of armor right on top of them, but Remus cast a spell (_Waddiwasi_) which shot the gum Peter was chewing up Peeves' nose, stopping him before he got the chance to knock the suit of armor over. The common room was full of people gossiping about the fight and they were bombarded with questions as soon as they climbed in through the portrait hole. After dodging people's questions, the boys stomped their way up the stairs to their dormitory with Kat following behind them.

"Man, what a day," James said, laying down on his bed face first. He took his glasses off and put them on the bedside table.

"Ha, you're telling me," Sirius said, flopping down on his own bed and untying his shoes.

The other boys followed suit, unlacing their shoes and taking off their cloaks. Sirius had just taken off his shirt when Kat gave a little cough to let them know she was still there.

"Jesus, Kat!" James said, jumping as he almost unbuckled his belt. "How long have you been standing there?"

Kat laughed. "Since you came up here, you idiots. Well, if all you're going to do is undress, I guess I'll go do the same in my dorm. Good night!" She laughed again at the surprised look on James' face.

The girls she shared her dorm with weren't there yet, so Kat changed into her pajamas and crawled into bed, trying not to remember how nice Sirius had looked with his shirt off. She mentally rolled her eyes at herself that she should be thinking about more important things, like Aiden attacking James than what Sirius looked like with his shirt off, but she couldn't help it. She sighed and rolled over in bed, thinking about all the questions the girls were going to ask her in the morning.

"_I can't believe it. I can't believe he would ever do something like that Remus!" Kat sobbed into her shaking hands. She was sitting at a rickety kitchen table._

"_It's true. I saw the house. Everything was destroyed except poor little Harry. Dumbledore sent him to live with his aunt and uncle." Remus had recovered slightly, but the tears were still pouring out of his eyes. He looked old and worn out, flecks of gray spotting his brown hair._

"_What about us, though? Wouldn't we be a better choice to look after him?"_

"_Dumbledore wants him to go with his family."_

"_Remus, we are…were practically family! Oh I can't believe it, Lily and James are dead! And Sirius…oh Remus….Sirius!" Kat broke down into fresh sobs. Remus took her into his arms_ _and they cried together, in that dingy little kitchen at that rickety table, while the rest of wizard kind celebrated the destruction of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named._

Kat woke up sweating and shaking from her dream, but the details leaked out of her mind like water through cracks in a bowl. She remembered being irrevocably sad, but couldn't remember why or who she was with. In the end, she didn't remember anything at all and the only sound in the room was the other girls' deep breathing. Kat rolled over and fell back asleep almost instantly.

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**So poor Kat keeps having these dreams about what happens with James, Lily, and Sirius. It's pretty sad really...**

**So I need ideas for what James and Sirius are going to do to really get back Aiden for being such an arsehole...I mean, they fought him in this chapter, but that's not good enough! Oh and if anyone has any ideas about what they should do for their Transfiguration and Charms practical exams for O.W.L.'s, please let me know! **

**Review if you liked it! Thanks for reading!**


	18. Premonitions

**Okay here****'s Chapter 17! I worked really hard on this one so I hope you like it! I'm starting to come up with scenarios for their O.W.L.'s which I might make Chapter 18 or 19, but I could always use some ideas!**

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April passed sluggishly for Kat, but finally it was May. Her sleep was full of disturbing dreams that she could only half remember, and the homework was really starting to pile up. After the second weekend in a row of working all day, the Marauders decided to actually do their homework during the week. James and Sirius had more to do than any of them because they had to serve their detentions every for fighting. It varied each night, sometimes they copied lines, other times they helped Professor Slughorn clean out the potion's cupboard, and other times they had to clean the Entrance Hall or the Trophy Room without magic.

In addition to serving detentions, James and Sirius were also banned from trips to Hogsmead. Not that that stopped them from going of course. They would kip under the Invisibility Cloak to get passed McGonagall and would take it off once they reached the relative safety of the village. There were so many students there in their black uniforms that James and Sirius blended in. All they had to do was avoid certain people (like Lily Evans) who knew that they weren't supposed to be out of school, and they were fine.

Kat really enjoyed the trips to Hogsmead. She would load up on all sorts of goodies like chocolate frogs and licorice wands at Honeydukes and laugh at the new jokes and pranking equipment the boys picked up at Zonko's. Then there was always the butter beer at The Three Broomsticks before heading back up to the school to look forward to. Kat often thought that if she was ever going to get a house herself when she got older she would buy a little cottage in Hogsmead.

As if all of their homework and studying wasn't enough to worry about, James was still adamant about them making a map of the whole school. Kat knew the grounds themselves well enough from staying out so much, but the boys knew it even better from their moonlight runs with Remus when the moon was full. They still needed to pinpoint the location of the Hufflepuff common room and they would know where they all were. The Hufflepuffs were living up to their badger mascot—the common room was hidden away and definitely secret. Kat overheard some seventh years bragging about how no outsider had ever gotten into the Hufflepuff common room.

Remus had spent days pouring over books in the library trying to come up with a way to make the map. Hogwarts itself was unplottable, so they couldn't put it on a map, but apparently they could still make a map _of_ it. James being the transfiguration wiz, asked Professor McGonagall several intelligent questions about how magical maps could be made and Kat asked the same of Professor Flitwick. Together all they had come up with was the location had to be very, very well-known and recorded in exact detail, or the map would just be like an ordinary muggle drawing. So needless to say, not much ground had been gained in that matter.

Kat stared tiredly at her reflection in the mirror and sighed. Her hair had gotten longer and needed a trim and there were bags under her eyes. Her dreams were starting to get worse, but she still couldn't entirely retain what actually happened. Each time she woke up in the morning, she remembered feeling terrified or incredibly sad, but couldn't remember why. Sometimes she could swear that there had been a flash of green light that woke her. This worried her because she only knew of one spell that made that kind of green light and she didn't like that it was in her dreams. Kat had mentioned her bad dreams in passing to Lily once and Lily had suggested she speak to the Diviniation teacher about them, but Kat didn't think it was worth it. As far as she knew, there were no Seers in the Campbell family and she wasn't very well going to send them an owl to ask about it. If her mind wanted to come up with more crazy dreams, she was just going to let it.

She let the tap run a bit before washing her hands. She swung her long brown hair over her shoulder and sighed when she saw the two faint pinprick marks on the side of her neck where Professor Clark had bitten her. A few days ago she had gone to see Madame Pomfrey in the hospital wing, but she had said that Kat would have those scars until the day she died.

She sighed again and blinked at her reflection. She had gotten tanner with the onset of spring and if she wasn't mistaken she was also a bit taller. _Ha, now James doesn't tower over me as much as he used to! _She left the girls' bathroom without Moaning Murtle blowing up one of the toilets and went to rejoin the boys in the library where they were working on star charts. It was a Tuesday during the Gryffindor fifth year's free period (formerly taken up by Defense Against the Dark Arts) and the fifth and seventh years were busy studying away in the library, shushing people loudly for talking. The prefects were docking points off of people if they spoke above a whisper or dropped a book on the floor.

Kat tiptoed quietly to the back of the library where she found Sirius dozing quietly, using his Transfiguration textbook as a pillow. She giggled silently and slipped in the chair next to him. James was playing tic-tac-toe with Peter and even Remus appeared to be daydreaming. He had cracked the window open a little because of the overwhelming stuffiness of the library, and was sticking his head out of it enjoying the breeze. Kat ripped a piece of parchment off of her Potions essay and threw it at Remus. He jumped and nearly cracked his head on the window frame.

'Let's get out of here,' Kat mouthed at him. 'I think I'm going to fall asleep too.' She mimed falling asleep on her essay and Remus grinned. Throwing another piece of parchment at James, Kat silently told him that they were leaving. James pointed questioningly at the snoozing Sirius. 'Leave him, he could use some sleep.' Kat mouthed. Together they organized their belongings into little piles and carried them away, leaving Sirius drooling on his Transfiguration book.

When they exited the library, they all burst out laughing. "Oh, he's going to be mad when he wakes up!" Peter laughed.

"Oh, he could use the sleep. He came into the dorm last night at half past two smelling like silver polish. I guess it was his turn to scrub grubby old trophies," said James. "I got lines last night."

"What did you have to write?" Kat asked. She sat on one of the stone benches and crossed her legs.

"'I must not act like a pompous prat.'"

"You liar!" Kat laughed, clutching a stitch in her side.

"So what do you guys want to do?" Remus asked, sitting next to her. His face looked drawn and his pupils were slightly dilated.

"Oh, you know what I could go for now? A giant glass of cold pumpkin juice and a nice visit with Gigi!" The boys all nodded. The last time they had visited the little house elf was the night Professor Clark had attacked Kat.

"Let's dump our stuff first though," said James. "I don't feel like dragging all this around with me all day." The others nodded sagely and they began the climb up to Gryffindor Tower. The castle was unusually hot and by the time they arrived at the common room they were puffing and sweating. Remus in particular was lagging behind a little. For once Kat was grateful that she didn't have to wear the long pants like the boys but a skirt instead. They left their robes in their dorm rooms and then headed back down the stairs to the painting of a bowl of fruit.

James tickled the pear (which turned into a handle) and they entered the kitchen. Immediately, elves appeared in their tea towels, taking their orders and asking if there was anything they could do to please them. They were ushered to one of the great, long tables and giant trays of tea cookies, little sandwiches, cauldron cakes, and more. A giant pitcher slowly made its way to the table, so huge that it was carried by four house elves. Another pair of elves carried a tray that had four goblets set on it and placed it on the table.

"Oh, yes," Kat moaned, grabbing the first goblet she could and quickly pouring pumpkin juice into it. In the process however, she splashed a good amount of it on the table and drenched one of the house elves. "Oh I'm so sorry!"

"No worries, Miss!" The creature squeaked. The others spirited him away and hurriedly cleaned up the spill. After asking if there was anything else they could do at the present, they bowed away.

"Wait to go, Kat!" James chided. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so excited for pumpkin juice that they nearly drown an innocent house elf to get to it!"

"Oh, hush," she said, going red. She took a big gulp of the pumpkin juice and felt much better.

The boys soon demolished the snacks the elves had brought them and the pitcher of juice was drained. The kitchen smelled wonderfully like baking bread and they were quite content to just lounge around. Things were so relaxed that Kat was about to start poking people in the sides to liven things up when Gigi appeared.

The elf had huge purple eyes the size of large tennis balls and a very thin body. She had a few wisps of hair on her head and she was wearing a huge smile. "It is good to sees you again, sirs and miss!" She said in her extremely high, squeaky voice.

"It's been a while since we last saw you," Kat said, smiling at her.

"You can just to sees me?" Gigi asked, her eyes brimming with tears. When they nodded, she smiled even wider. "Gigi is lucky to have such good sirs and misses."

A great, booming gong rang out, startling Peter so that he knocked over the pitcher—their free period was over and they had to start making their way down to the greenhouses for Herbology.

"We're sorry, Gigi but we have to go! Next time we'll make sure we have more time to visit!" James said.

Before they left, the elves made sure that they were well supplied for the journey to the greenhouses and the gap between their snack and lunch. Pasties and other good treats were stuffed in their pockets until they could carry no more. They left the kitchens greatly satisfied.

Sirius caught up with them when they got to the Entrance Hall and he looked severely disgruntled.

"You could've woken me up," he grumbled.

"Well you looked so peaceful, Sleeping Beauty that we had to let you stay," James teased. He dodged the smack that Sirius aimed at his head. "Careful, you don't want to get nailed for fighting again."

"Where did you go?" Sirius asked, after glaring at James.

"The kitchens for a quick snack," said Peter happily.

"The kitchens?! Without me?" Sirius pouted.

"Here," said Remus. He unloaded his pockets and bestowed his collection of pastries and sandwiches onto Sirius.

"Woah, Moony you're the best!" Sirius was much happier after that and munched on his new snacks the whole way down to the greenhouses.

The heat had turned the greenhouses into saunas. It was steaming inside because of the moisture and they were all sweating before Professor Sprout called them to order. She had them collect stinksap from her collection of _Mimbulus mimbletonia _to help Madame Pomfrey and Professor Slughorn concoct potions to help with the nerves for the upcoming exams. It was nasty, smelly work. You had to wear long dragon skin aprons and dragon skin gloves and goggles (provided by Professor Sprout) to avoid getting covered in the stinksap. Then you had to poke the Mimbulus mimbletonia to make it excrete the stinksap and catch it in large vials. The greenhouse they were using was soon thick with the sick smell of stinksap, more pronounced because of the heat.

After lunch and a quick cleanup, it was off to Charms where Professor Flitwick had them practicing silencing charms. Kat was partnered with Peter and spent the majority of the period silencing him immediately while he struggled to master the spell. Before class ended, Flitwick warned them that next class he would be quizzing them on their color changing charms.

"But I'm terrible at changing colors!" Peter moaned.

Professor McGonagall's work was the most difficult by far for Kat. They were supposed to be vanishing a box of kittens, but Kat couldn't bring herself to do it. Not only was the spell itself more difficult to use on mammals (snails had been easy, and rat were only a bit challenging), but she took one look at the kitten's face and she couldn't do it.

"Now really, Miss Potter, it's only a Kat," Professor McGonagall exclaimed when Kat said she wouldn't do it.

"But where will it go? It's so cute!"

"Maybe you can rescue one so Mr. Snowy has someone to play with when you ignore him again," Lily whispered to her after McGonagall had walked away. Kat had forgotten to give Mr. Snowy fresh hay to eat so had escaped his cage and eaten his way through Lily's bed sheets. Kat stuck her tongue out at Lily jokingly and went back to trying to vanish kittens.

By the time dinner rolled around, Kat was exhausted. She sat between Peter and James at dinner and began piling green bean casserole onto her plate.

"Where's Remus?" She asked, pouring a glass of milk as well.

"He's in the hospital wing," Peter whispered. "Don't you know what day it is?"

Kat swore. "I wondered why he wasn't very talkative today. I'm such an idiot."

"What a great friend you are," James teased, helping himself to green beans as well.

The Great Hall was filled with the noisy buzz of people relaxing and eating after a long day of work. Even Professor Dumbledore at the head table was looking weary. Some of the other teachers, Kat noticed were looking tired and some had their heads pressed close together, whispering. Kat was just wondering what they could be talking so secretly about when Lily appeared.

James did his usual get-ready-for-Lily routine and ran a hand through his hair, making it super messy and puffing his chest out a bit so he looked vaguely muscular. Lily ignored him completely.

"Hey, Kat, I just wanted to let you know that Professor Slughorn is having another dinner party this weekend. Since you skipped out on the last one I invited you to, you have to come to this one to make up for it!" Lily smiled.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Kat said "Of course I'll go to this one! What time is it?"

"Seven o'clock on Saturday. I'll wait for you in the common room so we won't be late." Lily waved good-bye and left the Great Hall.

James watched her go sadly. "Do you think she'll ever _not_ hate me?"

"Oh don't worry, you end up dating in two years," Kat said absent mindedly.

James spat out the milk he was drinking and Sirius choked on a meat pie. "WHAT?!" They said together.

Kat blinked. "What? What did I say?"

James wiped the milk from his chin. "You said that we started dating in two years. Lily and I. Lily _Evans_."

"I did? When?"

"Just now," said Sirius. He was looking at her with a very odd look on his face. "Has this happened to you before? This whole 'prophesizing' thing?" Kat shook her head. "You might want to talk to the Divination professor then…or maybe not. I'm not sure if they'd be much help."

"Look, I just said something that popped into my head. It's not like it's going to come true or anything!"

"Right…but still let us know if anything like that happens again. Have you been having any weird dreams or something?" Sirius asked.

"No," Kat answered at first. "Well, not exactly. I mean, I haven't really been able to remember my dreams lately which is weird. Usually I remember everything that happens in them, but lately, nothing. Just weird feelings."

Sirius frowned in thought. "Maybe you have some Seer blood."

"Oh, gross," said James.

"Hey!"  
"Sorry, but Seers are really crazy and weird. I met one once, a long time ago when I was really little. I think I was like five. Anyway, he was this crazy old guy who showed up at the house. He told my mum that her brother was in danger, but she didn't listen to anything he said. Sure enough, two weeks later my uncle died from a fall off his broom. But that wasn't the part that was weird, I mean my uncle was a total klutz. But the old man had two different colored eyes that stared off into different directions and he was all hunch backed."

"Well, obviously Kat isn't a hunch backed old man with messed up eyes," said Sirius, gesturing at Kat.

"I didn't say she was!" James looked at Kat in the eye. "Just let us know if any more of this stuff happens, okay? As much as I want what you said to be true, it could get really complicated if you started having psychic fits on us all the time."

They finished up dinner without Kat spouting any more predictions and headed up to the common room. While they were waiting for the common room to clear so James, Sirius, and Peter could make their way down to the grounds to roam around with Remus under the full moon, Kat challenged Sirius to a game of Wizard's Chess while James tried making a house of cards with his Exploding Snap deck. Peter cheered Kat on as she totally destroyed Sirius in their first game. Their plays were intermittently interrupted by James' whoops when his cards decided to explode.

To add to the hullabaloo of the common room a pair of second years had gotten their hands on a Fanged Frisbee and was tossing it back and forth to each other. It snarled at people as it sailed over head and several people had to keep ducking to avoid it. Other Gryffindors were trying to fit in some last minute studying before bed, but quickly gave up, joining in on the game of Frisbee instead.

Kat paused during her turn to look out the window at the full moon that had risen over the grounds. She shuddered when she thought of what poor Remus had to go through every month. Eventually, the crowd in the common room thinned out until it was just her and the boys. They bid Kat good night and slipped under the invisibility cloak and made their way down to the grounds. She told them to be extra careful because of all the detentions James and Sirius already had to serve.

Looking around at the empty common room, Kat smiled when she thought of where she could have been. The basement back at her parents' house seemed so far away now. The common room was warm and cozy and the fire had faded down into warm, glowing embers. She rested her hand on top of one of the squishy armchairs and thought about how much she was going to miss the castle over the summer. No place had ever felt so much like home to her. Even though Sirius was going to be living with her and James over the summer and Mr. and Mrs. Potter were so wonderful to her, she decided Hogwarts would always be her home. She smiled and mentally said good night to the castle before heading up to her dorm room.

As she was settling down in bed, she faintly heard the sound of a howl. She pictured James, Sirius, and Peter, all transformed, running across the grounds with Remus as a werewolf and realized just how dangerous that was. She knew that the boys were taking precautions, but what if they ran into someone on the grounds? What if that someone was her when she slept outside? She had forgotten it was the full moon this time, what would happen if she forgot again? She turned those troubling questions over in her mind for some time before succumbing to the world of dreams.

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**Ta da! So I haven't really decided if I'm going to end this story here at the end of fifth year and then start another one, picking up during the summer between fifth and sixth year, or if I should just keep writing it all under this one story. What do you all think?**


	19. Slughorn's Party

**Hello again everyone! I know it has been a ridiculously long time since I've posted ANYTHING and I'm really, really, really sorry about that. I can babble on about how I was busy doing school stuff and my extra curriculars but that really isn't an excuse. So, without further ado, here is the next chapter in The Runaway Marauder! Feel free to review if you thought it was terrible and I should have left it alone, or if it was awesome and I should write more!**

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Kat woke early on Saturday feeling worried. It took her a few minutes to figure out why, and then it hit her: O.W.L.'s were only a few days away. She wasn't looking forward to her first ever exams at Hogwarts. She was terrified that she would fail and be stuck back a grade while all her friends enjoyed their sixth year.

Not only did she have the O.W.L.'s to look forward to (oh yay), but there was also the weird thing about saying that James and Lily would be dating in two years. She had no idea where that had come from, and it honestly freaked her out. She'd only heard weird things about seers from James and it creeped her out. She didn't want to end up all hunchbacked with two different colored eyes.

And then there were the dreams. Every night they were unsettling…and she couldn't remember a single thing about them. Sometimes she would get sad when she looked at James or Sirius and she didn't know why. Other times, she would look at Peter and feel like someone was standing on her chest. If she tried really hard, she could sometimes remember being in a kitchen talking with a boy who looked remarkably like James or hugging a thin man with tangled black hair that reached down his back. It was unnerving. Since James had mentioned that she might have seer blood it was all she could think about.

To her surprise, when she sat up in bed Eileen was standing by the open window crying. She had a piece of parchment in her hand and a tawny owl was hooting softly on her shoulder.

"Eileen, what-?"

"Oh, good morning, Kat," Eileen said, turning. Her eyes were red and puffy and her bottom lip was shaking. "I hope you slept well." She said with a watery smile, trying to fake happiness.

Kat ignored what she said—she had not slept well. "Eileen, what's wrong."

Eileen took a deep, shaking breath. "It's my mum. She's disappeared."

Kat's heart dropped. "What do you mean, she disappeared?"

"My younger brother and my dad had gone to a Chudley Cannon's game and when they came home, my mum was nowhere to be found. The house was a wreck. Our furniture was all over the place and it looked like she fought whoever took her. My dad says he thinks it was a relative of some of the people my mum deals with."

Kat blinked, absorbing the information. "What do you mean, the people she works with?"

"My mum's an Auror. You know, a Dark Wizard catcher. My dad thinks that some relative of a Dark Wizard my mum helped catch and put in Azkaban wants revenge. Only, this was two days ago and they haven't heard anything. No demands, no note. Nothing." Eileen's eyes started watering again. Kat jumped out of bed and put her arms around the girl. Her shoulders started shaking and Kat rubbed her back soothingly.

"Don't worry, the Ministry will find your mum," she said.

"Someone else in her department went missing a few weeks ago and they never found him," Eileen said doubtfully. She pulled out of the embrace and rubbed her face. The owl on her shoulder nibbled her ear affectionately before flying out the window.

Kat smiled reassuringly but felt a knot form in her stomach. "Don't worry, it'll be fine, you'll see." Eileen smiled wanly and started getting ready for the day.

Kat started eating breakfast by herself but before long she was joined by James, Sirius, and Peter.

"How was it last night?" She asked, nibbling on a waffle. Peter slid onto the bench next to her while James and Sirius plopped down across from them.

James yawned widely. His dark hair was sticking out in all directions, more so than usual, and his glasses were slipping down his nose. "It was awesome! You have to come with us one of these times."

"James, you idiot. I'm not an Animagus. And there's no way I could learn to be one before we leave Hogwarts."

"I don't know, Kat. You're pretty smart. And we already know how to do it." Sirius said. His hair was all mussed up and he had his sleeves rolled up in the heat. Her eyes lingered on his exposed muscles before she mentally slapped herself in the face. He gave her a look to say that he had seen her looking before pouring himself a glass of orange juice. _Damn._

"How's Remus?" She asked, changing the subject. She directed the question at Peter who was sitting next to her so she wouldn't have to look at Sirius.

"He's in the Hospital Wing. But he didn't do anything too crazy last night so he should recover soon," Peter said. His watery eyes darted from his food, to Kat, to James and Sirius, and back to his food with the quick succession befitting the animal he transformed into.

They were quiet for a few minutes, stuffing themselves with the delicious cooking of the house elves. Lily pranced by with Eileen in the tide of students who were just starting their weekend breakfast. James smiled winningly at Lily (his spirits had risen considerably since Kat had announced that they would be dating in two years) and Eileen was holding her head high. She looked much more composed than when Kat had left the dormitory but her eyes were still red.

"What's wrong with Eileen?" Sirius asked Kat.

"What do you mean, what's wrong with her?" James asked, squinting at her. "She looks just as happy and chipper as she always does."

"No, something's wrong. Her eyes are red." Sirius frowned and looked at Kat.

She was surprised that Sirius had noticed that anything was wrong. But then again, with his family he was probably a pro at spotting people who were depressed or unhappy.

Looking around to make sure that she wasn't overheard, Kat confided in the boys what Eileen had told her earlier that morning. They listened quietly without interrupting and exchanged dark looks when Kat reached the part about the man who also went missing.

Kat bit her lower lip. "You don't think that the two disappearances are linked, do you?"

"I don't know," James said. "It might just be a coincidence. But, I've been reading the _Daily Prophet_—"

"Wait, you actually _read_?" Sirius teased.

"Shut up. I've been reading the _Daily Prophet _and some funky things have been happening. I don't think we've seen the last of these disappearings." They exchanged significant looks again and finished their breakfast.

They spent the morning mainly lazing about waiting for Remus to be released from the Hospital Wing. None of them were motivated enough to try doing homework without them, even though it was mounting up. The majority of it was all review material and was stressing them out, but they knew that they wouldn't get anything accomplished without Remus' help.

He found them by the lake just before lunch time. James was playing with a golden snitch that he had stolen from the last Quidditch game and Sirius and Kat were playing a game of Wizard's chess. Peter was snoring quietly in the sun. Remus was almost in front of her when Kat saw that he had a new cut along his jawline. She immediately jumped up and tried touching it which, of course, made him jump away from her.

"You said it wasn't that bad!" She exclaimed, kicking Peter and waking him up.

"It honestly wasn't." Remus said quietly. Kat's heart broke looking at him. He was tired and haggard, with deep dark bags under his eyes and his face was so pale that his old scars were nearly the same color as the new one. He even seemed thinner with his shabby robes hanging off of him. "I see you aren't using your time wisely."

"We knew we wouldn't get anything done without you, so we didn't even try." She said missing the way Remus smiled when she said it. James rolled his eyes.

"This is pretty much what we were planning on doing all day." Sirius said, gesturing for Remus to sit beside him in the grass. Kat plopped down with him and James pocketed the snitch.

"Well, I have to go to Slughorn's party tonight." Kat said unhappily.

"Oh gross, who wants to spend extra time with that buffoon?" Sirius snorted and James laughed with him.

"Lily," Kat sighed. James stopped laughing at the mention of her name.

"Hey, maybe you can take me with you or something."

"Um, no." Kat said. "I'm going as Lily's plus one as some sort of test to see if I can actually make it in the club. I can't bring my own plus one." Lily had made it clear multiple times over the past few days that since Slughorn had not invited her friends, they were not welcome.

"But if you like it, you can join the club and then you can bring someone to our end of the year party!" Lily had said happily after Charms yesterday.

"Maybe I'll take you with me to the end of the year party." Kat said, not really thinking.

James beamed. "Excellent."

They brought their lunch back outside with them and ate it by the lake. They spent the rest of the day rotating between playing Wizard's chess, sleeping, and at one point Sirius and James stripped down to the waist and went swimming in the shallows of the lake with the giant squid. Remus refused to join them because he said that they were idiots and would get squashed by the squid and Peter was too self-conscious to join. Kat wished that people didn't freak out when a girl decided to take her shirt off. She would have enjoyed a cool swim; it was sweltering hot again.

Kat left them at around 5:45 to get ready for Slughorn's get-together.

"What do you need so long to get ready for?" James asked, but Kat just waved and disappeared into the cool castle. She took a shower and was just using a drying spell to blow-dry her hair while making it wavy at the same time when Lily popped her head into the dormitory.

"You ready to go?" She asked?

"Yeah, just about." Kat slid her feet into a pair of black pumps she had just ordered. The black skirt she had on was slightly shorter than the ones she wore during the week and she was wearing a silvery blouse that she was borrowing from Khristine. She hoped it was appropriate for the get-together (it was kind of low cut and actually made it look like she had boobs.) When Lily stepped into the room wearing an even shorter skirt and an emerald green tank-top, Kat felt better. She slipped on a pair of silver hoop earrings and followed Lily down the staircase.

They boys were just climbing through the portrait hole when she and Lily reached it. Remus smiled at her and cocked his head to the side, before looking down at her legs and back at her.

"I thought you looked taller," he said.

Kat laughed. "I forgot, you guys haven't really seen me in heels. I just got these actually."

"You look good in them," Remus mumbled before pushing past her and disappearing up the boy's staircase. Kat blinked after him.

James grinned at her and stared moon-eyed at Lily before Sirius pushed him out of the way. Sirius smirked at Kat before following Remus up the stairs, pulling James behind him. Peter followed.

When they had crawled out of the portrait hole, Lily giggled. "Did you see the way Remus looked at you when he saw your legs in those heels? It was so cute! He totally has a massive crush on you!"

Kat blushed scarlet. "I don't know…"

"I really think he does." She giggled again. "Well come on, let's go show off your legs some more and get to this party." She linked arms with Kat and they sashayed down to Slughorn's party together.

It went better than Kat had anticipated. She didn't really know the other people who were at the party (it was filled with the intelligent, talented, good-looking people that she typically avoided) but the food was good and she laughed with Lily a lot. And she didn't have to use her excuse of suddenly remembering that she had to help Remus tutor Peter in Charms to leave early. In fact, she actually stayed longer than she had anticipated.

Slughorn was in a particularly exultant mood and brought out a few bottles of mulled wine and mead to share with the students. Before long, Kat was feeling rather tipsy and Lily was definitely drunk. She kept giggling at everything that was being said and was starting to lean heavily on Kat's arm. Slughorn just continued to chortle at everything and had bewitched the bottles to fly around and replenish empty glasses.

Finally, Kat had to draw the line at 1:30 and bid the professor good-night. She took Lily with her and together (waaaay past curfew) they made their way up to Gryffindor Tower. It took a second before Kat could remember the password (Bibbly-Wimbly, which Kat and Lily found absolutely hilarious in their current state) but she managed to pull Lily through the portrait hole and up to bed. She tucked Lily into bed, still in her party clothes and decided that she didn't really feel like sleeping herself. Instead, she went back downstairs into the common room to sit in front of the fire.

She was surprised to find that the common room wasn't deserted. Someone was sitting in the armchair closet to the fire, reading a book that was about as thick as a small tree. She came up behind them and peered over their shoulder. Upon closer inspection, the person was revealed to be Remus. He jumped when he realized someone was looking over his shoulder and flushed when he realized it was Kat.

"I thought everyone would be asleep." Kat said, perching on the armrest of the armchair. Remus carefully marked his place in his book before closing it.

"I always have trouble sleeping the day after." Remus said quietly.

Kat was feeling pleasantly content and put her hand on Remus' shoulder. He stood up quickly and put his book under on arm. Kat stood up too. With her heels on she was barely up to his nose and still had to incline her head a little to look directly at him.

"You, erm. You look beautiful tonight." Remus stammered.

Kat smiled at him. "Thanks."

He moved a little closer. "Listen, Kat." He said. "I don't know if you really know this, but—"

"Hey, do you want to dance?" Kat asked. She hadn't even heard a word he said. All she wanted to do was waltz around the room, and hey would you look at that? There was a guy right in front of her she could dance with.

"Dance?" He raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you want to dance with me. I'll just step on your feet or something."

"That's fine. I'll dance by myself then." Kat put her arms up like she was dancing with someone and began twirling slowly on the spot.

"Kat, are you feeling alright? You seem a little…too happy. Are you drunk?"

"Remus Lupin! I am not drunk! I may have had a little to drink tonight, but I am completely aware of my actions and I know that I want to dance!" Kat exclaimed as she revolved slowly on the spot. She could see Remus staring at her with one of his eyebrows raised each time she revolved. After each rotation, she noticed that he got closer until she could almost count her eyelashes. She stopped spinning abruptly and stared at him.

He put a hand around her waist and pulled her closer. "Kat," he murmured, but didn't say anymore. Kat was vaguely amazed that he was being bold enough to pull her close, but all she was really aware of was the warm body that was holding her and had oh so kissable lips. Before he could say anything else, she kissed his lips and entwined her fingers in his hair. His lips were soft and warm and it was extremely satisfying to kiss him. She felt his body tense up and then relax as the kiss lengthened. Kat was just thinking how nice it was when she snapped to her senses suddenly and realized that she was kissing one of her best friends. She pulled away from the kiss quickly, her eyes wide and stared at him. She awkwardly bit her lip before running away up the staircase and into the safety of the girls' dormitory.

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**Ta da? Not bad for not writing for ages? Maybe, maybe? Anyone...? Anyway, like I said before. Review if you thought it was good or if you thought it was bad. I'll try posting more later this week! Thank you for your patience if you still read it!**


	20. Awkward, Awkward, Awkward!

**_Hey everyone! I'm so, so sorry that it's been FOREVER since I've posted. But recently I was starting to get really bored and kind of depressed when I thought "OH my GOODNESS! I haven't written my story in SO LONG!" I understand that a lot of you are probably not too pleased with me, and I apologize for that. This chapter contains the sort of beginnings of a new dynamic within the Marauders. Nothing too fantastical happens, but I feel like, at the end, some good stuff happens. Let me know if you don't really get the ending...you'll understand when you get there! Now, without further ado, The Runaway Marauder is BACK!_**

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_ Crap. _He stood staring after Kat as she disappeared up the stairs. _Did I really just let that happen? She was drunk for Christ's sake! _Remus sat shakily back down in his armchair and put his head in his hands. His body was always a little whacked out after a transformation so he supposed that was why he had been so bold. And Kat…he licked his lips. He could still taste the mead that she had obviously had at Slughorn's party. _Crap._ She was going to think he was trying to take advantage of her, he just knew it.

Maybe by the morning she would forget all about it. He couldn't really afford to let himself get distracted because O.W.L.'s were almost upon them. He couldn't bear the thought of James, Peter, and Sirius passing without him. Remus swore out loud when he thought of Sirius. He obviously had a huge crush on Kat and Remus had stomped on that when he decided to kiss her…banking on the hope that Kat wouldn't remember anything come morning, Remus plodded off to bed. It was hours yet before he could finally fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the next morning it appeared as though Kat did remember what had happened. When Remus turned up at breakfast all groggy (he'd only fallen asleep at four in the morning, and here it was—7:30) Kat was sitting at the table by herself with her head resting on one of her hands. She was nursing a strong cup of tea and had her eyes screwed up. It looked like one hell of a hangover.

"Went a little too hard at the party last night?" Remus asked softly, in what he hoped was his normal voice.

Kat looked up with a start. "Oh God," was all she said before she stood up from the table, grabbed her tea and fled.

Remus stared at the spot Kat had just vacated. He was mentally kicking himself for approaching her. She had actually run away when she showed up…

He was so busy wallowing in his guilt and misery that he didn't notice when Lily sat next to him

"M-m-morning," she yawned, pouring herself some tea. "God, my head hurts. Can you believe that Slughorn let us drink at his party last night?"

"Yeah, that's pretty crazy," Remus mumbled automatically.

"Woah, that's your reaction to underage drinking? 'That's pretty crazy'? When did you become so apathetic about rule breaking?"

"Sorry, what?" He had been busy thinking about the way Kat had run her fingers through his hair.

"Holy shit! Something happened last night, didn't it?" Lily seemed to forget her headache and leaned in close. Remus could see the freckles on her nose. "Kat came sprinting into the dorm last night! It's the last thing I remember before falling asleep." Lily gave a gasp. "What did you do?!"

Her voice had risen sharply at the end and the few people who were awake were looking curiously over at them. "Lily, can you please be quiet?" Remus rubbed his temples. The headaches the girls had were becoming contagious. He was beginning to feel a pounding somewhere around the region of his right eye.

"Did you two kiss?" She asked excitedly. When Remus didn't answer, she took that as a yes. "I knew you had a thing for her, I knew it!"

"Can you please not tell anyone? I don't even know how it happened, or why I did it. But she was there and happy and beautiful and dancing and—"

"Wait, she was dancing?" Lily guffawed but stopped quickly and held her head. "Oh my God. This is great."

Remus looked pleadingly at her. "Please don't mention this to anyone. I don't think Kat appreciated what I did and—"

"Did she kiss you back?" Lily cut him off. She picked up a piece of toast and began spreading orange marmalade on it.

"Well, actually…she kissed me."

Lily's eyes widened but she continued preparing her toast. "Did she really?" Remus nodded. "Wow, I didn't think she was brave enough. You were her first kiss!"

Remus didn't reply. Kat had been his first kiss too. Luckily, at that moment Peter shuffled in for breakfast and squeezed in between him and Lily.

"Morning Remus, Lily," Pete said, grabbing a plate of sausages. "It's too early to be up on a Sunday."

Remus grunted in agreement and Lily nodded. He had lost any appetite that he had had earlier and all he wanted was to travel back in time to early this morning and change things. But did he really? He had been happy, oh so happy when Kat had stepped closer and kissed him, run her fingers through his hair, sighed just a little when he pulled her closer…

"MORNING!" James punched him on the arm and vaulted over the table, landing across from Lily and wiggling his eyebrows at her. "How'd you like that move, Evans?" He asked, rather snobbishly.

"Good-bye Remus," Lily took her toast and tea, completely ignored James, smiled at Peter and sauntered away to sit with Eileen and Arabella at the other end of the table.

James whistled low, gazing after her. "Man, she looks good this morning." He turned and looked at Remus. "You, on the other hand, don't look so well. You feeling alright, mate?" He asked.

"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night." Remus muttered.

"Has anyone seen my sister this morning?" James asked. He seemed to not have heard Remus at all. "I wanted to give her one last pep talk before our exams start tomorrow!"

_Damn! I completely forgot about O.W.L's with this whole situation going on!_ Remus jumped up. "I'll be in the library." He left the Great Hall without another word.

Sirius was just coming down the stairs when he reached them.

"Morning, Moony!" Sirius sang. He seemed like he was in a very good mood this morning. Remus didn't want to ruin it by saying that he'd snogged Kat early this morning. Instead he said a quick "Morning!" before hurrying off to the library.

The giant squid lazed around in the shallows and made Kat jealous. It didn't have to deal with boys being stupid or exams. It just swam around the lake all day, occasionally throwing someone out who swam to close. _What a life,_ Kat thought. She was leaning against the tree that she and the Marauders sat under all the time, nursing her cup of tea. Her head was pounding worse since she had run out of the Great Hall.

She was beginning to regret running away from Remus. She could tell by his cautious approach that he was trying to figure out if she remembered what had happened. And boy, oh boy did she. She even remembered her stupid dancing before Remus had gotten close, waaaay close. And she remembered that it had been her who had initiated the kissing, and how good it was. She remembered feeling immensely happy until she imagined what Sirius would do if happened to waltz down the stairs. She also knew that she needed to seriously sort out her emotions before she could face either of them again.

While Sirius was most definitely interesting, he was also rather aloof with her at times and she knew from experience that he was a player. But he'd given her a bunny for Christmas and had been seriously concerned when Professor Clark attacked her. Her neck gave a twinge even as she thought about it. Sometimes at night, she had nightmares about him, and in the dreams she had been turned into a vampire…

Remus, on the other hand, had always been kind to her. He was nice, charming, smart, and good-looking, if you cared enough to look past the scars. He had been diligent in helping her study for exams, not complaining once when she asked him at least a dozen times to help her fight off a boggart. She supposed he could have just been trying to get close to her, but that didn't seem like Remus.

Kat let out a huge sigh. She shouldn't have to be worrying about stuff like this. Her first exam ever at Hogwarts was tomorrow and she should be reviewing instead of worrying about what boy she really liked.

The more she thought about it, the less annoyed she was with herself for kissing Remus. She slid sideways off the tree and let herself lay down. She screwed up her eyes and tried wishing for some revelation. Instead what she got was the sound of footsteps.

"Hey," Kat recognized the sound of Arabella's voice, and by the sound of the footsteps, she wasn't alone.

Kat opened her eyes to find the girls from her dorm room looking down at her, everyone except Khristine. Kat was glad about that; she didn't think she could stand her heart stopping beauty right now.

"You feeling alright?" Eileen asked, frowning.

"I'm fine," Kat lied. "Has there been any news about your mother, Eileen?"

She shook her head, "None." She plopped down on the grass beside Kat and Lily and Arabella followed suit.

"We know you're having guy problems." Arabella said, sagely.

Kat blinked. "How did you know?" She hadn't spoken to anyone, about anything, except for her brief encounter with Remus over breakfast…

"I spoke with Remus at breakfast. He seems about as upset and surprised as you right about now," Lily said, leaning close. Kat groaned. "Now tell us what happened."

Kat closed her eyes, took a deep breath and decided to go for it. She had never been in a situation like this before and figured that the other girls would know what to do. She even went back as far as the Valentine's Day Incident to showcase just how confused she was.

"Why do boys have to be so weird and stupid?" She groaned after she had finished her narrative. "I was perfectly fine when all of us were just friends but then all this other crap started happening and now look at the situation I'm in!"

"Oh, sweetie," crooned Eileen. "Don't you know that all boys are dumb?"

"It's true, look at James. For the past four years he's been asking Lily out even though she gives him the same answer."

"I think you need to talk to Remus. How do you feel? Scared? Mad? Happy?" Lily asked.

"A lot of all of those. I'm terrified that I'll lose two of the only friends I've ever had, mad at myself for getting into this mess, and desperately happy, all at the same time," Kat shook her head, feeling miserable.

"Talk to him." The girls all floated away after that, going back to the common room to review for their Charms exam in the morning, and left Kat alone with her thoughts again.

The rest of the morning past with Kat leaning against the tree, watching the giant squid flutter around in the water, and thinking. At around lunch time the boys found her and were loaded down with enough food to feed a small army.

"Remus said you didn't eat at breakfast this morning so for lunch we thought we'd have a feast," Peter said happily, handing Kat a turkey sandwich.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

Peter and James plopped down on either side of her and Sirius stretched out on his back to stare up at the tree while munching on an apple. Remus sat slightly out of their little circle with his nose buried resolutely in _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Five_. No one spoke much as they all sat about eating. Finally, James broke the silence.

"Okay, you two. You've been acting weird all day, what is it? What happened?" Kat looked up from the croissant she was eating and saw that they were all looking between her and Remus. She felt her face grow red. She looked desperately at everyone but Remus. Peter looked confused, James looked amused, and Sirius looked…distant, like nothing that interested him was going on.

Remus on the other hand was looking rather pale and unhappy. It made his scars stand out even more than usual.

"Nothing. Nothing happened," Kat said quickly, hoping to spare herself and Remus some embarrassment.

"Riiiiight, nothing happened. And that's why you won't even look at each other." James grinned wickedly at the pair of them and Kat wanted to punch him in the arm. But, mercifully, he let it drop.

After that, the usual shenanigans erupted. Sirius and James started wrestling and even Peter joined in for a bit. Inevitably, they all ended up in the water, splashing about with the giant squid. The squid seemed happy to have something else to do.

Kat hadn't noticed, but Remus had moved closer while the other Marauders had been goofing off. He was sitting right next to her.

"Hey, um…" Remus mumbled.

Kat forced a smile on her face and turned to look at him. After a second, her smile became less forced and turned into a real one. All at once she felt like she didn't really need to say anything and, after a moment's hesitation, Remus seemed to feel the same way. They grinned like idiots at each other before opening Remus's textbook and studying Charms together while their friends, oblivious to the mutual agreement they had reached, played on in the shallows.

Kat felt something blossoming inside her chest. For the first time, she felt like the space just above her heart had filled a little and there was a pleasant buzzing sensation in her stomach. She scooted closer to Remus, whispering quietly in his ear, "Let's not tell them yet. Let's wait until after exams when they have nothing else to do."

Remus smiled back at her and this time, her grin came naturally.

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**_See what I mean about the ending? I left myself in a pretty crappy place to pick up writing again, so I had to throw some ideas around. The advice the girls give and the situation Kat is in sort of mirrors something that happened to me, and the resolution is pretty similar too. Please review if you liked it, and let me know if you have any suggestions for what should happen next! O.W.L.'s are coming up and we all need to study! :P _**


	21. Chapter 21

_**Hello again! See? Next chapter is all up and running already! I apologize for the rather vague way I finished last chapter, but hopefully this one fixes up all that stuff for you! Chapter titles are starting to get difficult to think up so I think I'll just leave them at numbers...anyone got a problem with that? No? Okay, good! Numbers it is then! Sooooo...here's the next chapter! Enjoy!**_

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Kat's first week of O.W.L.'s went decently she supposed. She had remembered the theory behind switching spells for Transfiguration and was pretty sure that she had aced the Charms exam. Color-changing spells and _Windgardium Leviosa_ were easy for her. The Defense Against the Dark Arts exam she was less sure of. Without Professor Clark there, she did better than she had expected, but her shield charm left much to be desired, but she did alright against the boggart (thanks to Remus).

After the exam, however, there was another incident with Snape and the Marauders. In hindsight, Kat knew that she probably should have seen it coming, and should have done something to stop it. After all, Snape never really did anything to bother her. James just hated him because he was friends with Lily and she was pretty sure that Sirius hated him because James hated him. In the end, Snape ended up suspended upside-down, Lily screamed at James, and everyone pretty much got mad at everyone else.

None of her friends had commented on her new relationship with Remus, probably because none of them knew. They weren't very open with it, and never really did anything. Sometimes, after everyone else had gone to bed after the exams, they would sit in front of the common room fire together and just talk. Remus told her how he'd been bitten and Kat told him about how she had first ended up in her parents' basement. They grew closer throughout the week and by the end of it, Kat felt as if she knew practically everything about Remus. He never thought that he was going to be able to come to Hogwarts (just like her), truly loved reading his books (just like her, after all, without them she would have failed every class this year. Studying the books in the basement had at least given her some ground to stand on at school), and was always uncertain about what he thought of as his "shaky relationship" with everyone at the school.

"I mean, what happens if they all find out I'm a werewolf? What happens if I _bite_ someone?"

Kat had no answer for him, not really. The more she thought about Remus and the others running around on the grounds during his transformations, she always thought about how she liked to sleep outside. The last full moon she had forgotten about, what would happen if she did it again?

Another reason she supposed that James and Sirius hadn't figured anything out was because, on top of all of their exams, McGonagall was still making them serve their detentions from fighting. So after hours of exams, James would stomp off to clean the trophy room while Sirius helped Professor McGonagall sort through the proper matches to start next year's first years on turning into needles.

"It's really not bad, working with McGonagall. I think she likes me," Sirius said one evening at dinner. James and Peter snorted into their Shepard's pie. "Not like that you idiots! I mean, besides from not being allowed to talk or anything, she has me doing some pretty easy stuff."

"Lucky," whined James. "I hope I get to work with her next week. I never knew how dirty a trophy room could get. I mean, honestly, do you know how many times I've cleaned all those mangy old Special Services to the School awards? What do I care about some tosser named Tom Riddle?"

By the time Saturday rolled around, Kat was quite ready for the weekend. They all had plans to go swimming in the lake to relax and cool off. She was a little nervous because the bathing suit she was borrowing from Eileen was a little revealing, and the boys had never seen her in anything except her Hogwarts uniform and Mrs. Potter's old clothes.

"You do look zo _skinny_!" Khristine exclaimed when she waltzed into the dorm when Kat was trying it on.

Kat felt her face grow hot. "I don't look ridiculous, do I?" She said, turning nervously to Eileen. Eileen was significantly taller than she was and had larger breasts. Kat thought that the blue swimsuit fit her nicely despite all of this.

"Don't worry, you look fine," Eileen had assured her.

So on Saturday morning, Kat hastily braided her hair down her back, tucking in a few loose pieces and slipped her uniform on over her borrowed swimsuit. It felt strange. She met the boys at breakfast and slid onto the bench between Pete and Remus. Both were looking rather ridiculous in their bright colored swim trunks. Pete had on a bright orange pair while Remus was sporting a neon green one.

"Wow. Erm, nice trunks?" Kat laughed as she sat down.

Pete's ears turned a bit red. "We're borrowing them from James," he explained. As if summoned on cue, James came striding in to the Great Hall, followed by Sirius, wearing blue and white swim trunks and carrying a large rubber inner tube in one hand. Sirius had a pair of muted green swim trunks and was carrying bundle of towels and what looked like a large raft.

"Where did you get all of this stuff?" Kat asked in wonder.

"Don't worry about it," James said with mock seriousness.

It was already warm outside when they reached the lake and a few other students had gotten the same idea and were already splashing around in the lake. James was the first to discard his shirt and dove into the lake, carrying his inner tube with him. Peter, rather uncomfortably, removed his shirt and was quick to join him in the water.

"Ah! It's cold!" He screamed after he surfaced from his dive.

Sirius laughed and deposited his bundle. He slowly pealed his shirt off and deposited it on the towels. Kat tried not to notice, but she did see several other girls staring as Sirius picked up his blow-up raft and sashayed into the water.

"After you?" Remus said, gesturing toward the water.

Kat shook her head. "I'll be in in a minute." Remus shrugged and went to join his buddies in the water. Kat noticed that he kept his shirt on. _Probably to hide all his scars._

She took a deep breath to calm down her thumping heart. She had no idea why she was so nervous about being in a bathing suit in front of the boys. They would probably make fun of her regardless of what she was wearing. With that thought in her mind, she quickly stripped out of her robes and rushed to the lake. She hit the water with a great _WHOOSH_ and immediately screamed. Pete was right, the water was _cold!_

James laughed. "This is the first time you've been in the lake, right? We forgot to tell you how cold it is!" His teeth were chattering a little bit as he paddled along in his floatie.

"You look good in a bathing suit," someone whispered in her ear. She jumped as Sirius gave her a wicked grin and paddled away. Kat flushed scarlet. _Crap_.

Inevitably, a splash war erupted, during which everyone got water up their nose and Sirius' raft got punctured. Slightly exhausted, Kat commandeered James' rubber inner tube and lay back gazing at the sky. Even though the water was cold, Kat thought it felt wonderful. Her head was clear for the first time all week as all the stress from exams vanished. James popped up out of the water next to her at one point and started to tow her around the shallows of the lake. She enjoyed the soothing motion of the water and let him take her.

"Gotta give you the tour," he said. Kat just nodded sleepily and let him carry on. After a few minutes though, James got bored and swam back to where the rest of the guys were, so Kat floated around on her own for a while. By the time she got around to getting back, the four of them were in the midst of an epic battle of chicken. Peter was perched on James' shoulders and Remus was residing on Sirius' shoulders.

"Get 'im, Moony! Kill him!" Sirius shouted as Remus lunged for Peter.

"You can take him Petey!" James shouted in encouragement, just before his head was forced underwater. Remus and Sirius both gave a yell and together they managed to topple her brother and Peter.

"Alright Moony!" Sirius sang after he had unceremoniously dumped Remus off of his shoulders. He gave him a massive high five and Kat cheered.

"Hey, that's not nice," James sulked.

"Don't worry about it," Kat laughed.

"Is anyone else starving?" Pete said after he had cleared the water from his ears.

"I could eat a whole hippogriff!" James and Sirius said at the same time. The both double over with laughter and the others joined in.

"Let's get some lunch, then!" Kat said, flipping herself out of the inner tube and taking it with her to shore. Goose prickles appeared on her skin as soon as she stepped out of the water and she was shivering by the time she reached the mound of towels. She carefully removed Sirius' shirt and draped a towel across her shoulders. She closed her eyes and smiled. The towel was just the right amount of fluff and tough, taking the cold of the lake right out of her and making her feel nice and cozy.

Several loud thuds told her that the boys had gotten out of the water so she opened her eyes and stepped out of their way. It turned out that Sirius had only brought four towels so James and Remus were arguing about who would get the last towel.

"I'm so cold, man!" James was saying. "Let's just share it, damn it!" Sirius laughed but Kat said, "Here, Remus, take mine." She unwrapped herself from the towel and threw it at him. He caught it in the air and smiled at her gratefully before wrapping himself in it. James whooped and began drying himself off with the last towel.

Shivering slightly, Kat dug around in her clothes for her wand and dried herself off with it. She then slipped back into her skirt and blouse, turned around and got ready to wait for the boys to finish with their drying. But when she turned around, they were all staring at her.

"What?" she asked.

There was an awkward pause. "I had no idea that my sister had such a rocking body!" James finally said. "And that she's smart enough to magic herself dry while the rest of us are standing here like idiots, freezing!"

Kat blinked. 'Rocking body?' What did that even mean? "Er, sorry." She said, whipping out her wand and waving it so that the others dried off. They soon had their shirts back on again and all their things gathered.

"Let's drop this off in the common room before we go to lunch, huh?" Sirius said, leading them up the lawn to the castle.

"Sure mate," James said, draping an arm around Kat's shoulders. "What a wonderful way to spend the morning. It almost makes me forget that we still have exams next week and I have to be cleaning the Owlrey with Sirius after dinner tonight!"

"Don't remind me," Sirius said darkly.

They continued to moan and groan for the majority of the trip up to the common room and Kat gradually drifted back to where Remus was trailing behind the group. She smiled at him and tried taking his hand, but he looked away and started walking faster, catching up with Peter. Kat frowned, stung by his refusal. Had she done something wrong? They climbed the staircases and passed a portrait whose owner appeared to be having a party. A lady in Baroque dress, a Roman soldier, and a Scottish clansman were all positively howling at a joke a rather drunk little witch had told while two wizards were playing keep away with a leprechaun's cap.

Kat smiled a little when she passed them, but was still confused about Remus. Hadn't they decided that they were going to try a relationship with each other? Or had they…? Kat wasn't really sure since they had never really said anything about it. She just assumed that they had come to a sort of unspoken agreement about it, but maybe Remus thought differently.

"Flibbity gibbet!" She heard Sirius say to the Fat Lady ("Oh, yes, please enter m'dear."). She hadn't realized that they were at the common room yet. She crawled in after James and winced as her hip popped.

"What the bloody hell was that?" James exclaimed once they were both safely on the other side.

"Oh, just my hip," Kat said, massaging it. "It does that sometimes." James wrinkled his nose.

"Meet you back down here before we leave for lunch?" Sirius asked her from the second step of the staircase. Kat nodded and the rest of the boys followed him up, Remus didn't even glance back.

Kat sat down in one of the armchairs hard, taking the second year who was sitting on the armrest completely by surprise. He slid off with a slight squeak. Kat didn't even bother apologizing. She was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with Remus. She hadn't gotten far in her thoughts before Sirius, James, and Peter came down. The three of them looked hungry and they kept glancing back up the stairs with growing irritation. When Kat heard Peter's stomach growl she told the boys to go ahead down to the Great Hall. "I'll wait for Remus; you guys go get some food." They left in a hurry without needing anymore encouragement.

Kat was waiting for another ten minutes and her stomach started grumbling too before Remus came down again. From the look on his face when he saw her, she knew that he had been hoping that she had gone down to lunch with the rest of the guys.

"What's up?" Kat asked, scowling a little.

Remus swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He shook his head and started heading for the portrait hole.

"Hey," she said, stepping into his path. "I asked you what was up. Are you okay? I thought you might want to hold hands or eat lunch with me or something since we're, you know, dating?" She looked plaintively into his face but she couldn't figure out what he was thinking. It was as if a wall had been put up in place of his usual openness. "Did I do something?"

Remus sighed. "Kat, this isn't going to work. I don't think our friends could handle it."

"What are you talking about? Of course they could, they're our friends. They'd have to deal with it."

Remus shook his head. "But that's not really what I'm trying to say…" He took a deep breath and started again, staring at the floor. "Kat…you're too good for me. You shouldn't be even thinking about going out with someone like me. I'm damaged goods and I'll probably just end up hurting you in the end, either emotionally or actual, literal physically. It's not going to be good and we need to end this now before it goes any further."

Kat felt like she had gotten the wind knocked out of her. "What do you mean?" She asked quietly. At this point, she didn't care if there were still people in the common room. To her, it was just her and Remus.

"You need someone who can be better for you," was all he said.

"'Better for me'? Remus, we're in _school _we aren't supposed to be worrying about stuff like that right now. We're supposed to be having fun and doing what we want. You don't have to worry about any future stuff or anything at all!"

Remus looked up. "I do," he said softly. "I always have to. You might not have run screaming once you found out what I am, but that doesn't mean that you won't later down the road. I don't think I could take it if that happened, so I'm cutting it off now before anything more happens."

They were both silent for a long time. Kat's mind was in a whirlwind. Here she'd been for the past week, after a crazy weird weekend, finally happy with her decision and convinced that she had made the right one, and Remus was flinging it in her face. It had only been a week, but it still hurt.

"I understand if you don't want anything to do with me for a while. For the sake of the guys I hope you'll find it in you to act normal like nothing ever happened. But if you can't, I'll stay out of your way until you can sort through everything that happened." With that Remus straightened his shoulders and went out through the portrait hole.

Kat stood rooted to the spot with her mind reeling, feeling the tears that were welling up in her eyes. Did that really just happen? Did he seriously do that only because he was a werewolf? How could he be so stupid? Determined not to cry in front of people, Kat swept up the stairs to her dorm room and threw herself on her bed and stared at the ceiling of her canopy. Thankfully, she had the room all to herself so when she really started crying no one was there to see.

For the first time she had been ready to commit herself to a relationship that was more than just friends, and he had thrown it back in her face. Beneath all her anger and hurt she could see why he had done it, but she didn't want to allow the justification to sink in. Remus, of all people! He had always been the kindest to her, and now he was being so kind he was cruel! She had completely lost her appetite and let the waves of misery crash over her. _Serves me right for thinking that any boy would want something to do with me_, she thought to herself as the first tear rolled down her cheek.

After a few minutes of crying, she felt better. She even felt a little abashed. They hadn't even made anything official nor done anything that could be considered "dating" so why was she so upset? None of her friends had noticed anything except…except the girls. They would want to know why she was so upset and what had happened with her and Remus. Kat wiped away the tears and stood up, resolutely smoothing her skirt and putting a smile on her face. If he wanted her to act like nothing had happened, then fine, she would act like nothing in the world was wrong. On the inside she would still be hurt and upset, but on the outside she would still appear to be the same, usual sunshine Kat. With that thought grasped firmly in her mind so she wouldn't think about anything else, Kat marched herself out of the dorm room and off to the Great Hall for lunch, completely forgetting to change out of her bathing suit.

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**_Sorry everyone, but it is going somewhere! So don't panic...too much I guess. Or panic if you want to...but please review, even if it is just to rant at me about how upset you are! :) _**


	22. Chapter 22

_**Alright everybody! Here's the next chapter! Yahoo! I'm really pumping them out quickly this week...y'all ought to be grateful! :) Haha but without any further annoying comments from me, here's the next chapter. Please review it if you liked it! I enjoy hearing what you have to say.**_

* * *

_List the exact components of a Strengthening Solution._ Kat put her quill down and inwardly groaned. It was the last question on the written potions exam and she couldn't think of the answer! The only thing that kept popping into her head was Remus saying "You need someone who can be better for you." She shook her head and looked around the Great Hall. She could see Remus sitting at a desk not too far in front of her, scribbling away at his parchment. Lily was farther up and appeared to be finished with her exam while Arabella, who was sitting right next to Lily and appeared to be feverishly writing still. Sirius was sitting at almost the front of the room with the other students whose last names were at the beginning of the alphabet and Pete was in the same row as her and James. James was sitting to the right of her, but Kat wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing.

Something pointy hit her in her right side and she turned. It was a tiny paper swan that James had thrown at her. He waved under his desk so the exam proctors wouldn't see. James pointed at the swan then at himself and Kat knew what he meant—he'd written her a note. Looking around slowly to make sure that no one was paying attention, Kat carefully unwrapped the paper, wincing at the loud crinkling sound it made.

_C'mon, what's the hold up? Why haven't you finished already?_

Kat stared at the note then looked at James, giving him her most annoyed expression. He shrugged and tapped his watch. Kat just rolled her eyes and stuffed the note in her pocket. Turning back to the last question she sighed again. Something Professor Slughorn had said about salamander blood and the powdered claw of a griffin rang a bell so she decided to write that down. At the last minute she remembered that it was supposed to be turquoise when you were done with it and hastily scribbled just as the witch who was in charge of time said "Quills down, please!" She dropped her quill and let out a sigh of relief.

After the witches and wizards who proctored the written part of their exam finished collecting all their materials, they were dismissed. Kat got up and stretched gratefully and began massaging her hand which had started cramping at the very end.

"I'm glad that's over and done with," she told James as they linked arms and started following the flow of students out of the hall. They had just enough time before lunch to stretch their legs a bit outside.

"What took you so long? I thought you were good at potions. I finished ages before you did!" James teased. Peter caught up with them in the entrance hall and fell into step with them.

"I couldn't focus," Kat muttered.

"How do you think you did, Kat?" Peter asked. He looked about as stressed out as Kat felt. "I thought I did alright, all things considered. I'm not very good at potions, but I think I might have pulled through with at least an A."

"I think I pulled through alright, Pete," Kat said, smiling at him. He grinned back.

"That's great news! Maybe you won't flunk out and you can join James and me next year as a real sixth year student!" Sirius said as he caught up with them and linked arms with Kat as well.

"Gee, thanks, Sirius," Kat said sarcastically. The three of them moved as one unit through the crowd of students who all wanted to get outside. Peter led the way through the crowd and pushed people aside so neither James, Sirius, or Kat had to push anyone. They blinked in the sunlight when they reached the front steps and started making their way to their customary tree. Kat had to walk slightly quicker than usual since both Sirius and James' legs were much longer than her own. Walking between them she felt about the size of a mouse.

She didn't pay much attention to what James and Sirius were saying on either side of her. Instead, her thoughts stayed fixated on the exam she had just taken. The more she thought about it, the less sure she was that she had correctly indicated the amount of time it took for a Polyjuice Potion to mature, let alone some of the ingredients. Her answer for the Strengthening Solution was starting to seem weaker by the minute as well. Professor Slughorn had asked her after their last class before the exam to let him know how everything went.

"I want to know how my newest student does on her first big test!" He explained. "And I'm sure I can help you put away any worry you have over the results, just let me know how it goes! Now, to be sure, don't tell me the exact questions, verbatim. I hardly think that's allowed. Just give me a teensy bit, and I'm sure I can help you." He finished with his customary huge grin and had patted Kat on the back. Just before she left the classroom, Slughorn had been talking to Lily and Kat assumed that it had been about the same thing. At first, Lily seemed annoyed that Kat was good at potions, but that quickly faded once she realized how panicky Kat was around potion making. It had been one of the only things she hadn't been able to teach herself when she was still stuck in her parents' basement so Kat was still worried that she would screw up at it. But, with helpful encouragement from Lily the few times Kat had asked her for help, Lily had obviously been reassured that Kat was not about to take her place.

A second year ran by sobbing with bubbles coming out of her ears and was closely followed by two boys who were roaring with laughter.

"Oy!" James said after they had whizzed past them. "Who do those blokes think they are? Do you think they want to take our place as pranksters?"

Sirius gave his customary bark of laughter. "Well it has been a while since we've done something really big. Maybe after exams we can do something."

Kat tuned in just as Sirius said this. "Wait a minute, are you two sure that you want to pull another prank? I mean, the two of you already have detentions that stretch into next year, and Gryffindor is already in last place for the House Cup!"

"Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a wad!" James said, pulling his arm out from her. Sirius hastily dropped her from the other side. They finished the rest of the trek to the tree in silence, but Kat could tell by the looks on the boys' faces that they were trying to think of some way to celebrate the end of exams that encompassed a lot of rule breaking.

"Why is it that there is never anyone else under this tree?" Kat asked when they finally reached the relative cool of the shade beneath the tree. James jumped up to hold one of the branches and began climbing.

"It's because, during our second year," Sirius explained. "James was climbing the tree when some students decided to kip under it for a few minutes. He got bored of waiting for them to leave, so he bewitched a few of the fallen twigs to start chasing the people away. Once they were all running about screaming, James jumped down and scared them some more and he said 'Hey, I was here first! Go find your own tree.' And they did."

Kat raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious? Just like that, people started leaving it empty for you guys to come along and hang out underneath it?"

"Just like that!" Peter said, plopping down on the ground. He eventually stretched out on his back and closed his eyes, sighing.

"Where's Moony?" Sirius said, just noticing Remus' absence. He started looking around at the groups of students who were all milling about by the lake. "I don't see him anywhere."

"He's been acting weird recently," said James from in the tree. "You know what's up, sis?"

Kat tried hard to quench the anger and hurt that surged up inside her belly. Instead of spewing who knew what sort of language, she put a smile on and said "I have no idea" instead. "Maybe it's a side effect of his last transformation. Did everything go…er, smoothly during it?"

"About as smoothly as it can go, I guess," muttered Sirius. "Blimey, I'm looking forward to when all these tests are done." He stretched out on his back beside Peter and patted the ground next to him. "C'mon, Kat, relax for a bit!"

"No thanks, I think I'm going to go talk with Professor Slughorn about the exam. He asked me to let him know how it went the other day after class and I promised that I'd tell him. I'll see you guys at lunch." She turned to walk away.

"Slughorn? Really?" She could tell by the sound of his voice that James was a little wary. She laughed.

"You just don't like him because he doesn't like you very much. And because he really likes Lily!" Kat teased as she started walking away. James didn't respond.

On her way back up to the castle, she passed Remus. Reminding herself that she was supposed to be acting like nothing had happened, she smiled and waved at him. She was surprised by how easy it was. From the way he smiled back at her, she could tell that Remus was happy that she wasn't mad. That showed how much he knew.

There was an awkward moment on her way down to the dungeons when she passed Khristine and the seventh year boy she was dating. They were snogging so enthusiastically that they had moved out of their obvious hiding place (a passage hidden behind a tapestry) and were standing in the middle of the hallway. Kat eased around them with an awkward "Excuse me" but they didn't even notice. Kat wrinkled her nose as she turned a corner. _Gross._ She heard footsteps following her and turned around to find Lily. She didn't look too pleased.

"Can you believe Khristine! That was disgusting!" She said by way of greeting. Kat laughed.

"Maybe we should have told them that they weren't hidden anymore."

"I think they know but just don't care. Are you going to see Slughorn?" Kat nodded. "Me too. How do you think the exam went?"

"Oh, I think I did alright. But the more I come to think of it, I don't think I gave a long enough time period for Polyjuice Potion to brew…and I don't think my Strengthening Solution was the right color."

"Did you say turquoise?"

"Yes, I did! Is that right?" Lily nodded and smiled. Kat punched the air. "Thank Merlin! I was so nervous I'd gotten that wrong. Man, am I glad that it's over! But we still have the practical exam later today. How do you think that'll be?"

"I don't think it'll be too bad," Lily said. They were almost at Slughorn's office. "Just relax and focus."

"Right," Kat said, knocking on the door. Slughorn opened it almost immediately and his face opened in a wide grin. "Hello, Professor! Lily and I wanted to stop by and see you. We just got out from our written exam a few minutes ago."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure, come on in!" He ushered them in to his office which was covered with pictures of past students. Some of them were whizzing around on brooms while others were shaking hands with important looking people. One witch was riding on a flying carpet. "Come and have a seat and I'll pour us something to drink," Slughorn said, ushering them into two squishy armchairs that sat in front of his desk.

Kat took the one nearest to the witch on the carpet and Lily took the other. Slughorn was busy rummaging around in a cabinet while Kat and Lily looked around at the rest of his room. When he turned around he was clutching three goblets and a bottle of mead.

"Oh, no, Professor," said Lily. "I don't think I could handle any more of your mead." Kat stifled a giggle but privately thought that she shouldn't have any more herself.

"Is that so? Well never mind then, I have a few bottles of butterbeer hanging around here somewhere, let me just find them." He went back to rummaging around in his cabinet. "So girls, tell me about the written exam. Was it difficult?" He emerged with three slightly dusty butterbeers and passed them out.

"It was alright, Professor," Kat said rather happily. "Lily assured me that one of the answers I put was correct, so I feel better."

"Ah, good show, Miss Evans!" Said Slughorn as he settled into the chair behind his desk. He waved his wand so that the caps to all their butterbeers popped off at the same time. "Cheers!" He said cheerfully before taking a swallow. "Anything on there that you had no idea what it was asking?"

"No, Professor. It was all familiar," said Lily.

Slughorn swelled with pride. "That's my girl. Was it the same for you too, Miss Potter?" Kat nodded, taking a sip from her bottle. She loved the taste of butterbeer and wished that she could have it more often than just the Hogsmead trips. "Good show! I knew from the start that you wouldn't have any trouble with my subject! You're a natural, just like Miss Evans here. How would you like to permanently join my little club, hm?"

"The Slug Club, sir?"

"That's right, Miss Potter. You can come to all our little parties throughout the rest of this year for the rest of your time here at Hogwarts, and I can help fix you up with all sorts of jobs after you graduate," he said with a wink.

Not knowing what else to do, Kat said "Of course I will!" She figured that having an in for job opportunities, and the last party had been a lot of fun.

"Oh, top hole!" Lily and Kat ended up staying for lunch with Slughorn. Soon enough though, it was time for the practical exam.

"We really have to get going, Professor!" Lily apologized as she and Kat stood up to leave.

"I understand girls. Good luck!" Slughorn walked them out of his office.

"Well that wasn't too painful, was it?" Lily joked. She seemed perfectly calm in the face of their exam. Kat on the other hand was beginning to enter the panic mode she was now coming to associate exclusively with O.W.L.'s. She grunted in agreement and let Lily lead her back up to the Great Hall.

* * *

"That was the single most boring thing I've ever done in my life. And I sat through all the classes!" Kat moaned. They had just finished their last exam, History of Magic, and she wanted to gouge her eyes out. Professor Binns made even bloody conflicts between giant clans or goblin riots sound boring and, in Kat's opinion, so had the exam.

"I'm right there with you, mate," said Sirius. The friends were all making their way slowly up to the common room to relax after their solid two weeks of exams. "But the good thing is that, even if we do get an O.W.L., we won't have to take the class next year."

"Oh thank Merlin!"

They passed through the corridor where James and Sirius had fought Aiden and Dolohov. The tapestry they had burned had been replaced by a portrait of a witch and a wizard playing Exploding Snap. Understandably, they were a lot more fun than the tapestry. Right on cue, a loud BANG came from the portrait and its occupants disappeared out of the frame for a few seconds. The wizard reappeared with his hat hanging off his ear while the witch came back with her glasses askew. James and Kat giggled as the portraits reasserted themselves and resumed their game.

They reached the Fat Lady a few minutes later ("Pig snout!") and Kat waited in the common room while the boys dropped their stuff in their dorm. While she was waiting, she decided to watch Eileen and Arabella play wizard's chess. Arabella was destroying Eileen, something that was making Eileen really unhappy. One of Arabella's knights had just demolished Eileen's last bishop when Remus showed up.

"How are you doing?" He asked her quietly. She didn't turn around but she felt him standing close to her left shoulder.

"I'm perfectly fine and pretending like nothing happened, just like you wanted me to," she replied, watching one of Eileen's pawns take a risky move that resulted in its destruction.

"That's good."

"Mmhmm."

Arabella's queen swooped in just in time to check mate Eileen's king. Eileen swore.

"Wow, Arabella! I didn't know you were so good at chess!" Kat exclaimed, determined to ignore Remus. She sensed him move away and her smile became less strained.

Arabella shrugged. "I used to play all the time with my dad. He's amazing at it."

"We should play sometime!" said Kat.

"I'd like that." Arabella smiled while she gathered up the pieces to her chess set. Eileen had left in a huff because she hadn't like losing.

"Why don't we play now?" Kat asked. She could use a break from hanging out with the Marauders so much. The whole situation was becoming difficult for her to handle and her face was beginning to hurt from all the fake smiles.

"Sure, why not?" Arabella set up the board again and soon she and Kat were battling it out on the chess board.

While they were playing, Sirius stopped by to see if either of them needed to send a letter.

"Sirius, who would I be writing to? The only people I talk to go to school here with us. Who are you writing to?" Kat winced as one of Arabella's knights took out her rook.

"Oh, right. I'm writing to my cousin, Andromeda. She's the only one in my family I actually like and I haven't really told her about me moving out of my parents' house yet."

"You haven't told her yet? Sirius that was practically ages ago!" Kat had her vengeance when her bishop took out Arabella's knight.

"Yeah, well I'm not the best at communicating," Sirius muttered before leaving through the portrait hole. Kat stared after him, a bit puzzled. Was he trying to hint at something?

By the time Arabella finally beat Kat (she had to concede that Arabella was better at playing chess than she was) Sirius had returned from the Owlrey and Kat could hear loud thumps coming from upstairs. She supposed one of the boys (or three by the sound of things) was jumping around in their room and was shouting.

"I'm going to go see what they're doing up there," she told Arabella, who nodded and started cleaning up her chess set.

Kat climbed the stairs and opened the door to the boys' dormitory just in time to see Sirius throw a book right at Remus' face and see Remus' wand fly out to deflect it. James looked livid and was standing by Sirius, fighting to hold him back while Pete had (apparently unsuccessfully) tried to do the same thing to Remus. Pete was lying face-down on his bed with his hands tied behind his back. Kat's eyes widened when she noticed all of the other things that were flying through the air. Books, a trunk, pillows, clothes, boxes of Berty Bot's Every Flavor Beans, and a half a dozen other things zoomed overhead.

"What the bloody hell are you doing in here?" She shrieked.

Everything stopped all at once. The objects fell out of the air, James released Sirius, and Peter's bonds disappeared. Remus was staring guiltily at the floor and Sirius was staring glumly at the ceiling. James was looking between the pair of them and then back at Kat. He shrugged his shoulders slightly and huffed.

"These two idiots started fighting and Pete and I tried to stop them."

"I can't believe you tied me up!" Peter whined.

"You were getting in the way," said Remus.

"Remus, Sirius, what the bloody hell were you two fighting about?" Kat asked. She was afraid to know the answer.

"Don't worry about it," Sirius hissed. He stomped over to the other side of the room where Remus was standing and whispered something in his ear. Remus hesitated before nodding. They shook hands. "See? We're fine. Let's play some Exploding Snap or start planning our next big prank," he said, grabbing James' cards from where they had fallen from orbit and started heading down stairs. He looked at her sadly before brushing past her and out the door. The rest of the boys filed slowly past, leaving Kat standing alone in their now extremely untidy room. She gave a short sigh and pulled her wand out to clean up a bit.

By the time she got back down to the common room, the boys were causing a big commotion with their Exploding Snap while the fifth year girls and all the seventh years celebrated the end of exams. The atmosphere in the common room was one of deep celebration and Kat decided that she would enjoy herself for the rest of the day and worry about what Remus and Sirius had been fighting about tomorrow.

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**_And it's finished! This chapter was actually really difficult to write so I hope you enjoyed it. Until next chapter! Ta ta!_**

**_~neelie_**


	23. Chapter 23

During the week following the end of exams, James and Sirius were punished for bewitching peoples' bags to chase them down the hallway. "Why do they insist on adding to their detentions?" Kat asked Peter, bewildered. Pete shrugged.

Things had become much more relaxed between her and Remus. She was even able to have a sort of conversation with him, which Kat thought was good. Since this was the first time she was going through something like this, she was pleased to discover that she recovered quickly. Remus and Sirius were being remarkably civil to each other, despite their fight. Kat wasn't really sure she wanted to know what it was about and when she had approached the subject with James he had told her flat out that he thought it was a ridiculous reason to fight.

"What do you mean by that?"

"One of those two idiots should tell you. But they know that I'll beat them up if they do anything too stupid with it," James snapped a little too briskly. Seeing the hurt look on Kat's face, he had draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a back-breaking hug. "Don't worry about it, sis. Your big brother will take care of stupid idiots for you." After successfully popping Kat's back he walked away to take a bath leaving Kat with an odd feeling in her stomach.

_'Your big brother will take care of stupid idiots for you.' _Did that mean that Sirius and Remus had been arguing about _her_? That seemed to be the case…Kat wasn't sure if she should be excited that two boys were vying for her affection or annoyed that they would resort to such childish behavior. Then again, she'd never had a crush before so she didn't really know how these things worked. Maybe Sirius was just mad at Remus for suddenly calling "it" off, whatever "it" was supposed to have been. Kat's mind drifted back to the Valentine's Day Incident in which—had that really happened?—she had almost kissed Sirius. That would have been interesting…being stuck in a dark corridor with Sirius Black…Kat's mind snapped back to the present and she grew irritated with herself. She no longer truly cared about what the boys did, she assured herself, as long as they left her out of it (which seemed unlikely to happen). Sirius seemed to be making an extra effort to be around her while Remus was giving her space.

James was also determined to ask Lily out one last time before term ended. He turned himself, along with several first years, lavender in the hopes that Lily would say yes because she loved the color so much. Kat didn't even bother trying to talk him out of it; she was too busy laughing hysterically with Sirius, Remus, and Peter to say anything.

Kat began to have unsettling dreams again, and this time she remembered some of them. There was one in which a greasy-haired, hook-nosed man was shouting at a dark-haired, gaunt one in a grimy old kitchen. A second one had her in a graveyard holding a bouquet of tulips with tears streaming down her face. She found herself talking to Peter more than any of the others about her dreams even though the only advice he had for her was to go see the Divination professor.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say, though!"

"Something like, hey Professor Vablasky, I've been having these weird dreams recently and—"

"Because _that_ doesn't sound incredibly ridiculous."

Later in the week, Peter and Sirius set off Filibuster's Wet-Start fireworks in the Charms corridor and were punished by being given the task of putting out all of the small fires they had started. The pair returned to the common room hours later covered in soot and reeking of smoke. Kat giggled just as hard as James and Remus when they turned up in the common room.

The atmosphere of the whole school was ripe with anticipation for the holidays. The sun shone brightly every day and the Marauders all spent their days lounging around the lake watching people tickle the giant squid's tentacles. At night, Kat resumed her nightly walks around the grounds (she was quite good at avoiding people now) and some nights she ended up sleeping outside again. Those were the nights when she didn't dream.

James and Kat were battling away at each other in wizard's chess while Remus and Peter played Exploding Snap. Sirius sat with his back against the beech tree lazily flicking his wand causing several leaves to zoom through the air.

"Weren't we working on a map," he said lazily.

Remus cursed as his house of cards exploded. "We got too busy with O.W.L.'s." He and Peter started over with their game.

"It's going to be pretty cool when we finish it," Kat said excitedly as one of her pawns took James' last bishop by surprise.

"We can keep working on it over the summer, I guess," said James unhappily—all he had left of his pieces were his king and a single pawn.

"We won't have any access to some of the great books we have at school here, though," said Remus, turning away from his game.

"True, but we'll still have you, Moony," James sang. "You can come and visit me, Kat, and Sirius over break whenever you want to!"

Kat was looking forward to seeing Mr. and Mrs. Potter again over the summer although now she supposed that she was supposed to call them "Mom" and "Dad." While spending the whole summer not worrying about deadlines for classes, or professors that were really vampires, or listening to Khristine rant about how in love she was with her boyfriend, or avoid Peeves, Kat sensed that Hogwarts would always be home to her. She had had a really great first year here, met all sorts of amazing people, made great friends, and learned so much more than she ever thought was possible—and she still had two more years! Privately, she was looking forward to starting classes again next year, even though that meant more homework. They were supposed to learn how to apparate next year and that would definitely come in handy when bothering James, she was sure of it. Not to mention that she would receive the results from all the exams she had spent the last two weeks of her life taking…

The end of the year feast was scheduled for the day after tomorrow and, after days of listening to James and Sirius moan about how good the food was Kat was really looking forward to it. She had been to visit the house elf Gigi recently, but the little elf had shooed her out of the kitchen.

"Gigi is sorry, miss, but you must be gone from the kitchen! We have much work to do and Gigi is busy!"

The guys had finally listened to her pleas and cancelled their end of the year prank which involved filling all of the puddings at the feast with Wet-Start fireworks just as people started to dig in to them. "You'll get even more detentions so that, next year, you won't be able to think with all of the time you'll be spending with McGonagall!"

There was still no word about Eileen's mother and to make matters worse, a second year in Hufflepuff's father disappeared. Kat was starting to get a nagging, worried feeling whenever she thought about it. That made at least three people who had gone missing this year that she knew of. Other people might not be so forthcoming with their family business. She was worried that something would happen to her new parents but whenever she started to think about it she mentally told herself to get a grip. _Nothing is going to happen to them._

The days all melded together until the day of the farewell feast was upon them. Kat woke up to the smell of turkey roasting and the girls in her dorm chatting excitedly.

"I can't wait to go home and see my little brother," said Arabella. Seeing Kat was awake she waved heartily. "We didn't wake you, did we?"

"No, don't worry about it. The turkey woke me up, I think," Kat said with a huge stretch.

"I can't wait to get home and see my sister," said Lily sadly. "She always seems so unhappy with my now, but I think this summer I'll really get through to her and we can be friends again."

Kat stayed silent while listening to the girls muse about home. She knew that Lily had a sister but she rarely spoke about her, and if she did, she was always talking about how close they used to be before Lily got her letter from Hogwarts. Kat sympathized with her; she knew what it was like to have a sibling who disliked you no matter what you did. Eileen was going to join her father in the search for her mother over the summer while Khristine was going to visit her aunt and uncle in Russia.

"Are you going back to live with James?" asked Arabella. The girls stopped chatting and looked at Kat expectantly.

"Erm, yeah. I'm part of his family now, where else would I go?"

"We just weren't sure of the arrangements and stuff," said Lily. "Hey, you should see if you can get away for a weekend or something and come and visit me! My parents would love to meet you since I've told you all about them."

Kat blinked. "Did you really?"

"Of course! I send them weekly owls about how my week was and what was going on with my friends, so naturally I mentioned you."

"Oh, that's um, very nice, Lily. I'll talk to everyone about it."

"Is Sirius Black going to be living with you too?" Asked Arabella, blushing furiously.

Despite herself, Kat felt an evil grin spread across her face. "And why would you want to know that, Arabella? Got yourself a nice crush on him, do you?" _Jeez, I've been spending too much time with James. I'm turning into a prat_, Kat thought to herself.

Arabella flushed a darker crimson. "Of course not, I was just curious…"

"Oh don't be thick, Arabella. We all know you're mad for him," teased Eileen.

Kat laughed. "Yeah, he's going to be staying with us for a while. He said at least until he can get his own place, but the Potters love him so who really knows how long he'll stay."

"I can't believe he actually ran off from home," Arabella sighed, her eyes glazing over slightly. "He's so _brave_."

"You never really told us your story, Kat," said Eileen.

Kat grimaced. "I'd rather not actually. All you need to know is that my real family is the Potters and I no longer associate with my birth family."

The girls seemed to find that an acceptable answer so after they all changed out of their pajamas, Khristine led the way down to the Great Hall where they had a light breakfast of toast and marmalade. The rest of the day passed relatively quickly, with Kat spending most of her time playing Gobstones, Exploding Snap, or chess with the girls. She even joined in a short-lived game of Frisbee out on the lawns with James and Remus but quickly stopped when she noticed they were playing with a Fanged Frisbee. As soon as the sun set they all hurried back inside for the start of the feast.

The Great Hall seemed more crowded than usual, possibly because this was the first time since the whole school had been together since the Halloween Feast. Everyone was chatting away merrily while they waited for all of the teachers to show up. Professor Clark's chair at the far left of the high table was empty. The Hall was draped in Ravenclaw's blue and silver banners and tapestries as they had won the House Cup. The hall grew hushed when Professor Dumbledore stood up to say a few words.

His beard had just reached the length this year to be tucked into his belt and most of the auburn had gone out of it. His half-moon glasses flashed in the light of the hundreds of candles that floated above their heads while he gestured for quite.

"Before we begin the end of the year feast, I have a few words to say," he said quietly. "And here they are—Congratulations! Toodle pip!" He sat down with a flourish and the golden plates on all of the tables filled with food.

The tables groaned under the weight of all of the food. Kat had thought that a lot of food was served at the start of the year feast back in September, but that was nothing compared to this. No less than ten turkeys sat on the Gryffindor table alone along with mashed potatoes, steak and kidney pie, casseroles, Shepard's Pie, green beans, carrots, Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, and a dozen more dishes. Kat grabbed the nearest dish and began piling food onto her plate. She had barely eaten anything all day in preparation for the feast. The feast carried on until Kat could hardly eat another bite before desserts showed up. Huge blocks of ice cream, treacle tart, a dozen different cobblers and pies…the desserts seemed to go on and on. If she had thought that the boys had eaten a lot of food, it was nothing compared to the amount of desserts they managed to stuff away. Kat could have sworn that Remus ate two pieces of treacle tart while James and Sirius chiseled away at a gigantic block of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Peter had confiscated an entire strawberry rhubarb pie for himself. A few minutes after Kat had packed away as much food as she could handle, the remainder of the desserts melted away and Professor Dumbledore stood once more.

"I thank you all for another outstanding year," he began. "And congratulations to Ravenclaw for their splendid performance this year and for their win in the House Cup with 523 points!" The Ravenclaws exploded into cheers and the rest of the school (minus Slytherin) cheered them on. "Now we have all been through some interesting things this year with one of our teachers. Thank you all again for behaving appropriately about those involved in the incident." Several people glanced over to where Kat was sitting, rubbing her swollen stomach. She flushed unhappily and was grateful when Dumbledore continued. "We will be having a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with us next year so that you may all continue in your education in that subject. Now, off to bed with the lot of you and have a safe journey tomorrow on the Hogwarts Express! Good night!"

There was a tremendous roar as hundreds of students pushed their benches back at once and began shuffling out of the Great Hall. Kat allowed herself to be pulled along with the flow of bodies out to the Entrance Hall where she met up with Sirius and Remus. Kat was too sleepy to really say much and neither Sirius nor Remus spoke. When Peter and James caught up with them, they headed back up to the common room together.

"You know, I think this has been a really successful year," said Sirius, yawning hugely. They cut across the flow of students and slipped through a side corridor. The drone of hundreds of voices faded as they continued on their own route to the dorms.

"I agree, mate," said James, throwing his arms around Sirius and Kat's shoulders. Kat did the same to Peter and Sirius did the same to Remus.

"I want to thank you guys for all you've done for me this year," Kat said. "I never would have made it without you."

"Aw, shucks! You've gone and made me blush!" James joked. Kat checked him with her hip which made him and Sirius stumble. "Oi! I was being serious!"

"No you weren't, I'm Sirius!" Said Sirius loudly.

"You too are ridiculous," Kat chortled. "I am about to fall asleep on my feet! You might have to carry me back."

"Not if I fall asleep first," said Peter. Everyone laughed.

* * *

Kat fell asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow. The next morning was a rush of double checking to make sure that everything was packed and doing last minute checks on all of Mr. Snowy's gear. They had all of their trunks loaded on to the train with a compartment to themselves and Mr. Snowy was sitting comfortably on Kat's lap. She handed him carefully to Remus so she could stick her head out the window for one last look at Hogwarts as the train pulled out of the station. She stared at it with a sad feeling until the castle was out of sight then she sat back down and reclaimed her rabbit.

"I feel sad, leaving," she said.

"It's only good-bye for a little while, Kat. It'll still be there next September when we come back for Sixth Year," said Sirius. He looked happy to see her with Mr. Snowy.

"Besides," said James. "Just think of all the fun we're going to have together this summer."

* * *

**_Okay, so this is the last chapter that I'm going to write in this story. The next one will be in The Runaway Marauder Part II until I can think of a better name for it. Thank you so much to everyone who has read this story and stuck with it! I love you all for actually reading my writing! I don't think I could have written this much without the support. _**


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